AM Sewing

One of these blocks is not like the other

2012-02-11T12:06:00.001-06:00

Three more of these blocks. Although that dark green one is both my and my husband's favorite, the fabrics in it have a completely different feel from the others. Seems the biggest pieces in my scrap bin are brights.

I was trying to fix the color on the first pic (fail) and accidentally turned it black and white. You really get a sense of value. That dark green block doesn't match the others in value either.It may need a project of its own.

Weather forecast is -15F / -26C with windchill. Guess who's staying inside and sewing today. Maybe I'll do some laundry.

Playing around

2012-02-01T19:27:00.000-06:00

I couldn't quite squeeze the scraps from this quilt and a stash re-org into my scrap bin so I used them in my version of Victoria's block from this tutorial. This might become something more than a couple orphan blocks. We'll see. In the meantime, I've made a couple more millennium blocks and some units for this oldie and some binding. Anything to avoid making the backs I should be making for this and this and this and. ...

Next up?

2012-01-22T09:51:00.000-06:00

This might be the next project. It's a UFO from 1999. I remember the year only because this was to be my millennium quilt. My guild at the time exchanged 2 1/2-inch squares so that we could get 2,000 squares for our quilt. I spent hours sorting the squares by color and value and trying to weed out all the duplicates (and squares so poorly cut they couldn't be used).

I have about a third of the blocks I need. And I found my drawings and notes about what I had planned. I need 40 squares across and 50 down to get 2,000, which will require a few rows of squares running down between the blocks and squares running around the outside.

I pieced one more block this week, and realized why this project hadn't gotten far. Kind of boring piecing, and those squares aren't all that square. Makes me wonder how badly I cut the ones I exchanged. At least I can see definite improvement in my sewing skills in the last 13 years! Wonder if I finish this if a quilt historian one day will think it was made by two different quilters.

Couldn't wait

2012-01-15T18:39:00.000-06:00

Doll quilt, 19.5 x 26 inches.

I was loving Lori's quilt-along so much that I couldn't wait for her next step, and now my little top is done. I'm so pleased with it.

I see she has posted step 3 and is promising quilting suggestions next, which will be great because I think I might hand quilt this one. (And just ignore the other little wall hangings that haven't had a stitch put in them for years.)

Thanks, Lori!

Switching gears

2012-01-14T12:26:00.001-06:00

Triangle Love, 69 x 84

Top is done. The pattern is Chopsticks, which I changed a bit by using a single fabric where she has multiple fabrics and using multiple colors where she has a solid. I wanted to highlight that Marcia Derse fabric that is fabulous in person but does not photograph well. My version also has a different number of blocks and rows than the pattern.

And when I was almost done putting it together I thought, "I should have oriented the rows up and down." Maybe next time.

Then I completely switched gears in terms of scale and color and started Lori's doll-quilt quilt-along Pink Lemonade. I'm working on Part 2 (the half blocks). This is such a fun project. I'm going back to it right now and put off making the binding and backing for the triangle quilt!

Love triangle

2011-12-29T19:19:00.002-06:00

Apologies for photo, which does not capture awesomeness of fabric.

This will not be the first new UFO of 2012! I will finish it easily, but early in the next year. Since this picture, I have pieced all the whole triangle-shaped blocks. I have to figure out the setting blocks as I am morally opposed to piecing a whole block, however simple -- and these are! -- just so I can cut it in half (plus quarter-inch seam allowance) and toss the other half (less quarter-inch seam allowance) away.

Photos do NOT do justice to this Marcia Derse fabric. You really must see it in person. I might frame my scaps it's so gorgeous! But in this picture it kinda looks like a leopard shed on my design wall. Even my husband likes it. He walked past the quilt room the other night and said, "Wow. I like those colors!" Usually he only offers an opinion if I specifically ask so that was a good sign.

Cover up

2011-12-26T10:49:00.000-06:00

I bought myself a Kindle Touch awhile back, but didn't get a cover because of course I should make one. I used the pattern in Quilter's Home magazine that I used before, but I had to adapt it to the size of my device, which is smaller. It's a snug fit. Should have made the straps a bit slack. I'll have to keep that in mind if I make another.

Fabric is Cosmo Cricket's Circa 1934 for the cover and Sweetwater Authentic for the inside. Both are Moda fabrics.

Ghosts of Christmas Past

2011-12-24T15:23:00.000-06:00

Saw this in the neighborhood the other day. Looks like Christmas came before the Halloween decorations had been taken down. Some scarfs and Santa hats and these ghosts are ready for the season!

In quilting news, the border is on the top, the backing is made and the whole lot has been shipped off to the longarmer. I've got the binding ready to go when I get it back.

I cut the border so the same pattern is in all the strips and they move around the center. Of course, the top is so large no one else is likely to notice.

And this is what I'm working on next. I fell in love with this gold fabric by Marcia Derse and found a pattern right away that I think will highlight it perfectly.

Wishing everyone a lovely holiday however you celebrate it.

On the border

2011-12-04T19:11:00.001-06:00

The colors are a bit off, and it is wider than my design wall, but you get the idea. My original border choice didn't work. Neither did two other options from the stash. All too busy, but the right colors. So I was forced -- forced I tell you -- to go to the quilt shop today and find a border.

I was not forced, however, to buy other fabrics and a pattern, which will probably be my next quilt. (UFOs are so passe.) If I can just keep my focus on this one until I get the borders on, then I can ship it off to the longarmer. Those new fabrics are like a siren song though. "Cut me. Cut me," they whisper ever louder. Sigh. Maybe a test block or two.

Getting My Points Across

2011-11-26T10:44:00.001-06:00

Another block done. Takes a couple days of sewing per block, but with two blocks nearly done, I've got almost half the quilt finished!

One thing the pattern doesn't mention is how to match the points. Here's what I'm doing:

Marking a quarter inch at each intersection in the strip sets with a permanent pen.

On the wrong side, of course!

Insert a pin straight into the seam at the quarter-inch mark on the top piece.

And straight out the other piece in the seam at the quarter-inch mark.

Keep the pin straight up and down and pin the two pieces of fabric together. I pinned this one parallel to the edge. Remove the straight up and down pin.

You can also pin perpendicular on either side of the straight up and down pin. That is probably the better way to go so you can sew with either piece on top. If I see that there is more fabric between the pins on one side than the other, I sew with that piece on the bottom so that the feed dogs help gather up the excess fabric without creating a pleat in my seam.

Press seams open.

Points match!

Happy Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T08:48:00.001-06:00

Start of Something New

2011-11-23T09:39:00.001-06:00

First block (almost) from "Shades of Grey" by Sarah Fielke from Quilters Newsletter August/September 2011. Blocks are huge -- 36 inches -- so only need four! Unlike the original, I'm making each square in different fabrics. My stash pieces don't usually go beyond a half yard unless I think they might be potential borders or sashings, so I'm having to mix it up. (Also, it would be too boring to make two the same.) I'm even using fat quarters for the two inner most diamonds, which means some diamonds are pieced together. Starching the fabrics before cutting helps control the bias. Pressing the seams open.

UFO's run in the family

2011-11-14T08:43:00.001-06:00

My mom likes to applique and doesn't care much for piecing so she mailed me some blocks to put together for her. I squared them up as best I could.

This is a Piecemakers pattern from 1996 called "Times and Seasons." I think it's a block of the month that can then be put together into this quilt. Mom's been working on it for years.

I found the perfect backing fabric in my stash: Alexander Henry from 1999. I have just enough for the back. I knew some day I would find the right quilt for this fabric, which has all the same colors as the front.

I think there's enough border fabric for the binding. I'll put that and the back together and mail it all back to mom. There needs to be some applique finihsed that crosses over the block seams (and maybe a little extra to hide where I couldn't quite match the hills across blocks). It will go back to Mom for that. I'd rather piece than applique.

Get one while you can

2011-11-07T06:00:00.000-06:00

Barbara Brackman announced this week that her book "Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns" is now out of print. How sad. I've used that book countless times.

The book was invaluable in planning my Florida quilt. How else would I have found so many Florida-themed blocks such as Tallahassee, Key West, Sunshine, Orange Peel, Storm at Sea, etc.?

I took over my guild's block of the month program right after September 11. I used this book to find blocks that seemed relevant to the events (Birds in the Air, New York, White House Steps, etc.) and then drafted them all to the same size. Each month in 2002 members could make the blocks for the drawing in that month's colors and/or for themselves in red, white and blue for a sampler quilt.

Several other quilts have been planned and countless block names confirmed with her book. Not to mention all the blocks I've discovered when looking for something else.

This book has been around for years. Before computers. You can only imagine the dedication required to gather all that information and then put it together and index it with drawings of each block. And to think she did it with a typewriter and graph paper!

Read her funny post about the book here.

It's done whatever it is

2011-11-06T07:57:00.000-06:00

Piped windmills, 30.75 inches square.

Finished the blocks and added a border yesterday. Not enough piping fabric left to add some between the blocks and border. Oh well. I took the class to learn a technique and didn't really have a plan for a quilt. Now I have a 30.75-inch square top that is a complete composition. Not sure what to do with something that size. Table topper maybe. There's no piping in the middle so you could put a vase there and not have it wobble.

Piped binding sample from class.

I don't see myself making another top with piped blocks, but I am planning to try piped binding in the future. I've already made the top. Just need to get it quilted so I can bind it. Ah, another UFO awaits.

From the archives

2011-10-29T15:30:00.000-05:00

Henry's quilt.

I finished the baby quilt and delivered it.

I'm all about the straight-line quilting!

Then I dug out another one of my UFOs.

Only plan for this right now is to have it done.

Not as old as the flag quilt. This one can't be more than four years old. Four blocks done in a class based on the book "Piping Hot Curves" by Susan K. Cleveland. Eight more finished this week.

Tools of the trade.

The book's instructions are clear, and I was able to pick up where I left off in class all those years ago. I like learning new techniques. You never know when you might need them, and they can be a source of inspiration. Not that I need more ideas. Time. That's what I need. Any ideas for getting more of that?

Ooops! Missed September

2011-10-16T08:27:00.000-05:00

I'll have to recap that month later. Lots of travel, not a lot of quilting.
I did finish the flag top. Ta da!

My version of the flag quilt.

Picture of the original old quilt.

Only eight years in the making. Of the top anyway. We'll see how long it takes to get it quilted as I seem to have quite a pile of those.

I'm quilting the star baby quilt now. Actually, that's done. Working on the binding. Used the star scraps from that to make this little number.

Twelve inches total with half-square triangles finishing at one inch. Not sure what I'll do with it. Pillow? Mini quilt? Add to the pile of similar bits?

August (and July) roundup

2011-08-28T11:08:00.000-05:00

Can't believe August is nearly over. It's been a busy one with barely any hands-on quilting. One reason I started a blog was to keep track of when I did things so I could look it up later. I'm just terrible remembering dates and years!

So here are the highlights of the last few weeks for tracking purposes. Feel free to skip down to the bottom for the quilt related bits.

My mother taught me that pointing was rude.

This has been outside my window at work the last several weeks. Every time I stand up and look out, people are looking up her skirt. The statue created quite a stir because you can see her underwear, but I don't think it's the statue so much that bothers me as the behaviour of some of the tourists.

One of the many air shows at Oshkosh.

Again this year my husband and I went to Oshkosh, WI, for the annual EAA fly-in. We drove. But camped there and spent two days watching air shows, looking at planes, plane parts, plane accessories, etc. Two days is about as long as a non-pilot like me can handle. But I do enjoy myself. The air shows are great, and I got to tour a Blackhawk helicopter, which doesn't happen every day. Some of the exhibits are pretty interesting. This year there was a display of air mail planes. This one was my favorite.

The sign in front of it reads: "Sept. 23, 1911: With a sack of mail on his lap, Earle Ovington piloted a Bleriot XI on he first official U.S. Air Mail flight, taking off from Garden City Estates on Long island, New York. He flew 6 miles to Mineola, where he tossed the mail bag containing 650 letters and 1,280 postcards overboard for retrieval by postal employees. Ovington continued to fly a round trip a day for the rest of the air meet that month."

Galt Airport Flour Drop.

I wonder how successful he was in dropping the mail sacks where the postal employees could retrieve them. It's not as easy as it looks to hit a target from the air. I know this from experience. Every year our local airport hosts a flour drop, where you drop 1-pound bags of flour from a minimum of 300 feet onto a target drawn at the end of the runway. The target has various rings with different points and the highest scores win a trophy. I estimate about half the contestants don't even hit the target!

World's Largest Corn Maze. In a suburb near me.

While we were waiting our turn to drop our flour, we flew over the Richardson Farms corn maze. The maze is open now, and we'll be going again this year. It's so much fun wandering around in the corn! This year's theme is "Salute to our Military."

Pappajohn Sculpture Garden in Des Moines.

I spent two weekends in Des Moines visiting a friend. Des Moines is a nice city, although the downtown is a little dead on Sundays. One weekend we went to the huge Farmers Market, the East Village, the Pappajohn Sculpture garden and ate really well at some good restaurants. Fried brussels sprouts are amazing! Who knew.

Yes, 100 years of the Butter Cow at the Iowa State Fair!

Last weekend, we went to the Iowa State Fair. It seemed safe by then with the Straw Poll over and all the politicians having left the state. I'd never been to a state fair before. It was a lot of fun. I particularly liked the Iowa Craft Beer tent. We saw the deep-fried butter on a stick being made and talked to some people who were eating it, but it was just too gross to try ourselves. We did manage a pork chop on a stick, which was really good! Actually, we had no fried food at the fair. Hmmmm. Didn't think that was possible.

I made my first spin art piece. Apparently this is a staple of many a fair. I'm thinking I need to go to more fairs just to do this again. I don't care if I was by far the oldest participant. This was my favorite part of the fair. You know, except for the quilts.

One corner of the large quilt exhibition space.

And there were a lot of quilts! Unfortunately, because of the number of quilts and limited exhibition space, they were not displayed in the most ideal way. Only the blue ribbon winners were displayed so you could see the whole quilt, and for some reason I didn't get pictures of those. Maybe because we found the room they were in as we were planning to leave, and we kind of zipped through the space.

I love this quilt. My photo doesn't do it justice.

And maybe because seeing only a small part of the quilts made them more intriguing so I took more pictures of those. I wanted to see so many of these folded quilts opened up.

And that is just some of my pictures of some of the quilts at the fair! Kind of overwhelming, isn't it?

Yesterday was our block's annual party. The kids love riding bikes in the street. The grownups love catching up. This year's topic: How much sewage in your basement? (Our village is trying for some FEMA disaster funds after recent storm waters caused sewer backups in hundreds of homes.) Everyone loves the potluck dinner and games.

Things should be settling back into a more regular routine now so probably more sewing and attempts at better blogging to come.

No end in sight

2011-08-15T20:05:00.001-05:00

Lots going on, but not much of it sewing related. I'm still plugging away at the flag blocks, sewing four flags together and then sashing with white strips and red cornerstones, which finish at a half inch.

Finished sections of the flag quilt are pinned to the design wall.

I'm determined not to pack up this project until I have the top together at least, but it's slow going and tough to be accurate with such narrow sashing. I don't want to sew too long a seam with that sashing so I'm sashing on two sides and will sew those groupings in sets like four-patches. Eventually, I'll have to sew a long seam, but I'm putting it off as long as I can.

I've been meaning to share the monthly email from the International Quilt Study Museum, but keep forgetting. Barbara Brackman mentioned it on her blog a long time ago, and I signed up. Every month a different quilt, and lots to see on their site too.

This month's is in memory of Ardis James who passed away early last month. According to the New York Times, she and her husband "established what is now the largest collection of quilts in the world". They began the Quilt Study Museum in 1997 with their donation of almost 1,000 quilts.

Here's the link to the August quilt:

http://www.quiltstudy.org/collections/quilt_of_the_month/

Off to sash some more flags while watching a George Clooney movie. I suspect I won't get all that much done tonight.

Quilt as desired

2011-07-31T08:26:00.000-05:00

The top and backing are done. Now to figure out how to quilt this.

This might be a brief post

2011-07-29T10:11:00.000-05:00

I'm having a bit of an issue with Blogger: Most of the display is missing. Took me 5 minutes to figure out that blank square was the New Post button. I looked all over for it! Now, I can only see the Add Image button if I resize my window so it's teeny tiny. We'll see how this goes. (Not well. Had to ditch Blogger in Draft to get any photos into this post.)

Isn't this the cutest fabric? Wendy Slotbloom for In the Beginning.

Lots of excuses for not blogging lately. Blogger is only one of them! Been very busy, but not on the sewing front. A weekend in Des Moines, a weekend shopping at Nordstrom's big sale with a visiting friend, a trip to Oshkosh, WI, for the annual fly-in (we drove), etc. Some pics of that once I breakdown and read the instructions for my new phone so I can get the photos into the computer without emailing them to myself. Usually, I just poke around and figure it out, but not having any luck this time.

Here's the layout. I'm trying to keep the plaid going all the same direction

even though it won't line up exactly. I'm just a little anal retentive.

Yesterday I decided to make a baby quilt for neighbors who had a little boy, but weren't able to bring him home because their house was one of the many in our village with sewage backup in their basements caused by one of the many storms hitting the Chicago area lately. We were lucky and no flooding this time.

This is the 5-inch flag block. Not as blurry in real life.

And I did make some progress on the flags. Only 22 more of these blocks to make, and then I can sash and cornerstone them.

I can't quite reach the top of the design wall with this one.

Happy Birthday, USA

2011-07-04T08:09:00.000-05:00

They'll be no cake, but I'm hoping to get more of these flag blocks done today. Yesterday was mostly spent rummaging through the cupboard for different red, white, blue and gold fabric, cutting tiny pieces for the 5-inch blocks and ogling Bradley Cooper in the A-Team. Concentration should be better today thanks to a British mystery series. Phew! I only made one block last night before going to bed. It was easier handling those 1-inch strips than I remember. Guess my sewing has improved over the past eight years!

A happy belated Canada Day too!

Snail's pace

2011-07-03T09:58:00.000-05:00

I'd been working on this (again) in April and put it away. Pulled it out again when I finished the airport carpet top. Too much work travel these last two months to get much sewing done. I have managed only a few more blocks. I'm hoping to make a bigger dent this holiday weekend. Grocery shopping done, laundry done, toilets cleaned, blog reading caught up, movies borrowed from the library, and husband is off to work later today and not returning until late tomorrow night. This top will be done when I'm out of the pieces I cut two years ago (yikes!) when I started this. There's quite a pile to go!

Or maybe I should work on the flag quilt that is now eight years in progress!

Deja vu all over again

2011-06-26T17:47:00.000-05:00

The other day I was looking at my Fons and Porter magazine and saw this top quilt in an ad for one of their books. I thought to myself, "I like that. It looks pieced not appliqued. I wonder how hard it would be. I should make a quilt like that."

And then I spent the weekend at my sister's to see my nieces in their dance recital. (Ten year olds in in a tribute to Bob Fosse is not to be missed.) I walked into one of their bedrooms to drop off my suitcase and saw this quilt that I made. Yes, I made it. Not so very long ago. A few years. And yes, it's pieced not appliqued. And the pattern apparently wasn't that hard because the quilt is finished.

I'm crossing this off my to do list. Again.

Put together

2011-06-12T20:48:00.000-05:00

60 x 66 inches

Top's done. And I made some binding. The dreaded back will have to wait. I've got eight tops in the cupboard now. Guess I need to send some off if I hope to get them finished. Picking the fabric and pattern is my favorite part. It's a wonder then that I get the tops done.

This blurry pic is the airport carpeting that inspired the top. I'm back there again this week, but I'll not try to take another pic. My skills and the terminal lighting will not have improved enough by tomorrow.

A tiny bit of progress

2011-06-05T12:09:00.000-05:00

I've stitched the blocks together in four-patches, and now I can see the whole thing on the design wall. Glad I took this pic. I see I need to turn the pieces in the middle bottom around. If I weren't flying off for work in a few minutes, I probably would have gotten the whole top together. A little bit of progress is better than none!

Inspiration under foot

2011-06-01T06:35:00.001-05:00

I just got back from two weeks in Baltimore for work. Besides a suitcase of dirty laundry, I also brought home the determination to make a quilt inspired by the carpet squares from the United terminal at BWI. Over the last few years, as I walk down the hall to or from a plane, I think, "That could be a quilt pattern." This time, I was determined to follow through. (Sorry no carpet picture.)

The carpet pattern consists of plain squares alternating with squares containing a single stripe. The striped squares have the stripes either toward the top or to the right side of the block. I figured my plain squares would be a print, and I found two 1-yard cuts of different scale leaf prints in similar colors. Then I pulled blues and lavendars from my stash that went with the main fabrics, making sure I had darks, mediums and lights, and a variety of scale and pattern in fabrics that would read as "solid." Some of these fabrics are from the '90s!

After making up several striped blocks, I played around with the arrangement of the two fabrics for the plain squares: alternating in rows, on a diagonal, random. I also tried all of one fabric or the other, but I needed to use both prints to make the top a decent size. The diagonal arrangement won, and I decided against using the two main fabrics in some of the striped blocks.

When the center was arranged on the design wall, I had the idea of creating a border by extending the stripe all the way around the outer edge of the top. Corner blocks made, and once I sew all the blocks together I should have a 60 x 66 top. Could have been a little bigger, but due to a nighttime cutting incident, I ran out of one of the leaf prints early.

This was a quick top to make, and maybe I should write up instructions?

Binding Part II - Knife edge

2011-05-26T06:00:00.001-05:00

This is how I do it. I don't know if it is the "right" way or if there is a better way because I don't see too much written about knife-edge bindings. This is what I do when I want the quilt to end just the way it is without the frame that regular binding adds to the edge.

I cut strips about 1 1/2-inches wide and a couple inches longer than the side of the quilt.
Sew the strips to the quilt front using a quarter-inch seam,
starting and stopping a quarter inch from the edge.
Press the strips away from the quilt front.

With the back of the quilt facing you,
fold one binding strip over to meet the quilt edge, and press.

Fold the binding strip again along the quilt edge, press if needed,
and pin the binding to the back of the quilt.
On the front of the quilt, you should see only the quilt.
On the back, you should see only the binding.

Hand sew the binding to the back of the quilt,
and trim the strip ends even with the quilt.
Repeat for the opposite side of the quilt, sewing the binding strip in place and trimming.
Now, trim the short ends of the remaining strips about a half inch from the quilt edge,
and fold it in on itself so the folded edge is even with the quilt edge.
Then fold the strip along the length to meet the long quilt edge and press,
like you did before.

Fold the strip again along the long quilt edge and pin to the backing.
You should see only the quilt from the front, and only the binding from the back.

This is what my end looks like with the strips folded, but not yet sewn in place.

Sew the binding strip to the back of the quilt.

Sew the binding along the short ends, tucking in the folded edges.

Hope this makes sense! If you have an easier or better way, please share.

Binding Part I - Joining the ends

2011-05-22T06:00:00.002-05:00

Thinking that someone might find my binding methods helpful, I took pictures for a post last fall. Can you have blog UFOs? Finally, here's how I join the ends of regular binding when attaching to a quilt.

I'm skipping the part where you sew the binding on and turn corners. That's covered in lots of other places and usually pretty much the same wherever you find instructions. This post is about joining the last two ends of the binding together. I thought I was using the Fons and Porter method, but I just looked in their "Quilter's Complete Guide" and it's not exactly what I do. Not sure where I learned this then, but it is fairly easy, and the final seam looks like all the other seams in the binding if you joined your binding strips on a 45-degree angle.

Stop attaching the binding to the quilt a good 10 inches from where you started
so you have room to maneuver the pieces.
Make sure the start end is trimmed at a 45 degree angle.

Tuck the beginning piece into the end piece, making sure the pieces are flat
and as taut as you'd want them in the finished binding.

Draw along the angled edge of your binding to mark the end piece.

Pull the end piece out and extend the line across the width of the binding.
Make sure the line is at a 45-degree angle from the strip edge.
Then, mark another line a HALF inch from your mark,
closer to the edge of the binding strip and away from the attached end.
The half inch is the quarter-inch seam allowance for the two ends.

Trim along this second line.

With right sides together (and making sure you don't have a twist in the strips),
line up cut ends of binding strips, offsetting them slightly
so that your quarter-inch seam will start and end
in the V formed by the two pieces.

Press the seams open, and stitch the last part of the binding to the quilt.
Turn the binding to the back and sew in place as usual.

I hope this was helpful and that it makes sense!

The process

2011-05-19T06:00:00.001-05:00

I usually forget to take pictures along the way. This time I didn't! So here's a look at the process of making what will some day become a table topper from this Nancy Crow fabric I had for years and years and finally cut into.

I cut the striped fabric so I could mitre it around a black center square.
I wanted the center unpieced so a vase wouldn't wobble if placed in the center.
The leftover mitred pieces look good made into corner triangles.

Seeing how it looks with more black on the outside. Good.
But the center square is too straight.
How about a wavy black line around the edge?

Using the Ricky Timms method, I layered the black fabric right side up
under the center square so the fabrics overlap a bit.

Then I cut gentle curves through both layers and removed the extra fabric.
Flip the black on top of the tulip fabric and slowly sew the two pieces together.
No need for pins. Go slow and align the fabrics as they reach the needle.

Ta da! A gentle curve that matches the feel of the tulip fabric.

I repeated this again to add the corner triangles.
Now all I have to do is quilt and bind it.

Now for the setting

2011-05-15T06:00:00.001-05:00

The four finished Prairie Flower blocks together.

I finally finished my Prairie Flower block. Four done. I keep thinking it would be better to do the original six I'd planned, but I'm afraid that would mean years and years would go by before I got to thinking about settings again.

Just can't get away from half-square triangles.

Along with the fabric from the blocks, I saved this April 2007 American Patchwork & Quilting magazine for the setting idea in it. Actually, the sashing idea. I'm not going to applique a border. It really would take years for me to finish it then!

Winding Ways

2011-05-14T11:14:00.000-05:00

Signed it after I took the photo.

Victoria is looking for 6-inch signature blocks, and I found these templates in a rummage through my sewing cabinet. I've had them for years and years, but hadn't gotten around to even making one block. Now I have.

The templates are great. Metal with a sandpaper-like backing so they grip the fabric, and I could use my small rotary quilter to cut out the fabric.

Pinned at the center, a little ways from the end, and at the end point.
The pins through the end dots come out, and
the piece is flipped so the concave piece is on top when sewing.

The instructions with the templates gave piecing and pressing instructions. The curves were easy to piece. I put a pin straight through the end points to match them and then pin. I also pin a bit before the last end point, and in most cases I match the centers and pin. Four pins total. Keep the concave piece on top. That's the one that looks like a cave: ( Sew slow and align the fabric as you go. Curves are not really hard, but sometimes small pieces are hard to handle.

Fabric, fabric, fabric!

2011-05-09T06:00:00.001-05:00

The week before I went on vacation, I headed to the two closest quilt shops to look for fabric for a particular project. Didn't find what I wanted, but I did find these.

And these that go with another piece I'd bought earlier.

And these two pieces from the clearance section. Pretty backs for some future quilt.

Then on vacation I discovered Heartfelt Quilting and Sewing completely by accident. I ended up spending two hours there wandering through the shop. Good thing I don't live close or I'd be in BIG trouble. The shop is huge with a nice selection of Civil War reproductions, 1930s reproductions, batiks, novelties, Asian fabrics, solids, current fabric lines, threads, fusibles, buttons, rulers, books, purse making notions, etc. I've never seen a shop with such a good variety of quilting fabrics and so many sewing tools. The shop also has a couple longarms that you can learn on and then rent to quilt your own quilts. I would love to do that and see how I like longarm quilting.

When you buy fabric without a particular quilt in mind, how much do you buy? I get fat quarters when they are available, but when they aren't I have a hard time deciding how much. How much for a main fabric piece that could be a border? How much for something that will be used in blocks?

Winning hexagons

2011-05-08T10:48:00.000-05:00

I won this lovely book (in English) on hexagons from the giveaway on the Ildico Textildesign blog. The book, by Hilde Klatt and Liesel Niesner, documents Liesel's Hexagon Technique. I have long been thinking of making a quilt with hexagons. I have at least two hexagon rulers, an old hexagon book that doesn't explain how to make them, and at one point a very large collection of magazine subscription cards that I thought would make excellent hexagon papers. I have made some pieced hexagons before, but never took the plunge into hand sewing them until now.

The book I won has lots of good information, step-by-step instructions with pictures, tons of tips and ideas plus pages and pages of different grids to help you design your own quilts. I took the book with me on vacation to read, and yesterday I sat myself down and drafted my first template. Then I pulled subscription cards out of some magazines and scraps out of my giant bin and got to work. This morning I finished the last seams on my first hexagon flower. Now I'm hooked! I need to work a bit on my drafting. I think I can do better.

Thanks to Ann Champion's blog where I saw this entry that got me following the Ildico Textildesign blog where I entered the giveaway, won and finally took the paper-piecing hexagon plunge.

Thank you, Liesel and Hilde!

Forgotten finishes

2011-04-24T09:42:00.000-05:00

Spider web quilt, 44 inches square

I realized the other day that I hadn't posted pictures of these two quilts I finished awhile ago. They had been languishing in the binding stage for a bit behind a couple others.

William Morris I, 68.5 x 74 inches

The William Morris one is on my bed. It's not that big, but the duvet is almost the same color brown as the border so it looks good on top of that. The other day, we were reading in bed, and my husband said, "Have you heard of William Morris?" Ha! (He was reading "The Book of the Dead: Lives of the Justly Famous and the Undeservedly Obscure.")

Looking back in my blog, I see it took over a year from start to finish for the Morris quilt, which was quilted by Maggi Honeyman. I enjoyed making this top and figuring out a different method of piecing it.

Monkey Wrench in my plans

2011-04-05T06:30:00.000-05:00

Was doing a bit of cleaning and found this UFO so started working on it again. This was my planned baby quilts for the twins, but it didn't have the right tone for two little boys. It's more an older boy quilt, don't you think?

Above is what I have finished now. Colors are better in this pic. Below is what I started with: a partially pieced section and a bunch of squares, half-square triangles and four patches. What a difference all those quarter-inch seams make!

This is the block I'd planned. It's called monkey wrench, but reminds me of Snail's Trails. The churn dash block is also called monkey wrench, I think. So many names for the same (and different) blocks in quilting.

The blocks, when put together, create alternating dark and light stars. I'd added a row to one edge of my pieced section to complete the stars. Now I'll have to work around that to finish this up. Not sure the size this will end up. I'll have to make some more four patches and half-square triangles. Can't get away from those HSTs!

This is the back of the block. I like the technique of opening the seams where four pieces come together. It helps reduce bulk, and in this block, piecing in the order I did, all the seams are going in the right direction so that they can be butt together easily with the next block. I really like a good pressing plan.

The other New York quilt exhibits

2011-03-29T06:29:00.003-05:00

The American Folk Art Museum has two other shows going on besides the red and white quilt show. Photography was allowed, but no flash. The light was not the greatest, and as I have readily admitted, I am not that great a photographer under the best of conditions. But, here are some of the ones that caught my eye from those exhibits.

From the "Super Stars" exhibit at the Lincoln Square branch of the museum:

Broken Star, Clara Boutraeger, 1925-1935.

Carpenter's Wheel Variation, 1945-55.

Georgetown Circle Quilt, 1900-1920.

Golden Wedding Ring, 1930-40.

Star of France, 1930-40.
Pattern 151 from Hubert Ver Mehren's Home Art Studios of Des Moines.

From the "Masterworks" exhibit at the museum's main location on 53rd street:

Bird of Paradise, 1858-63.
Speculation is that this was a bridal quilt, but the wedding didn't take place
based on the groom being missing from his place next to the bride in the top row.

Appliqued and embroidered pictorial bedcover, 1825-45.
Maybe I shouldn't have shown this because it's so blurry,
but I love the composition and colors.

Star of Bethlehem, 1880-1900. Silk.
Love that border!

Sunflowers and Trailing Vine, 1783-1830.

Infinite Variety: Three Centuries of Red and White Quilts

2011-03-28T20:37:00.000-05:00

Wow! The exhibit was fabulous although I have a bit of a stiff neck from looking up at all the quilts.

Joanna S. Rose says she didn't set out to collect quilts. Instead she was a treasure hunter, finding many at flea markets in the 1950s where they sold for $5 or $10 or "were used to wrap purchases." Can you imagine? Of her more than one thousand American quilts, 650 red and white ones are on display at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City through Wednesday, March 30, as an 80th birthday present from her husband. (I got a card, unsigned so I could reuse it, this year.)

The show was not displayed as a typical quilt show, and there was no information on most of the quilts. In a few places, you could call a phone number to hear a recording about a particular quilt, but otherwise no information about the individual quilts was available.

Lots of non-quilters were at the show. I heard one woman on her cell phone telling a friend that she needed to get down here and see this show. "This is the most amazing thing I've ever seen." They were as enthusiastic as the quilters, even buying fabric in the museum shop after I explained to a few what a fat quarter is! Later at another exhibit at the American Folk Art Museum I heard the clerks in that shop talking about how they were selling out of everything at the red and white show!

Pictures were allowed, but the lighting was rather dim even with a flash, the quilts were hung rather high up, and I'm not that good a photographer in the best of conditions. Plus there were so many!

My husband's favorite quilt from the show.
Not sure how you pick just one.

I found one quilt in the same pattern as my Woven Blocks!

Saw several examples of this pattern that is similar to the Woven Blocks.

The piecing and quilting are amazing on this one.

One of my favorites. I'd like to make this.

A few house quilts in the show included a church.
Most had signatures, which I think means they may have been fundraising quilts.

Loved this one too! Amazing quilting.

This Ocean Waves quilt had amazing quilting too.

Not the greatest photo, but you can see some of the amazing quilting on this one.

Not really a quilt. This is two pieces of white muslin, seamed together to make the fabric wide enough. Then it was covered in red embroidery. There's no backing. There were two examples of this in the show.

I have a piece similar in construction, but without this volume of embroidery. Mine was acquired at a white elephant sale at my grammar school in the late '60s in Maine. I once had it informally appraised at a quilt show and was told the fabric was the width it was because it was hand woven on a loom and that's how wide the loom was. I think I was told the fabric was early 1800s. I'll have to dig it out and show it some time.

Isn't this fabulous? Two sets of owls, and a butterfly
much bigger than the bearded guy next to him.

My husband wants me to make him one of these.
I have the templates somewhere so maybe I will.

This display included my favorite polka dot quilt in the exhibit.
I'd never seen one until this show, and there were at least three on display.

Border mystery solved

2011-03-24T06:12:00.000-05:00

62.5 inches/158.75 cm square

This is the border I ended up putting on my version of the mystery quilt. I have enough units left for another round of checkerboard, but I think that would make it too wide. I think I'll stop here. I'll make the binding and backing before I put it in the top pile. Red binding?

Red and white quilts

2011-03-22T20:11:00.000-05:00

Taryn of Repro Quilt Lover is hosting a Red and White Quilt Exhibit in honor of the show coming up in New York. Here are a couple that I've made. Red is my favorite color. If anyone is hosting a Red and Brown Quilt Exhibit, I've got a few entries for that too.

Woven Blocks, 60 inches/152.4 cm, 1997?
Quilted by Maggi Honeyman

This is one started earlier in my quilting career. Maggi quilted it with red thread so it has kind of a redwork look to it. Once I started making quilts faster than I could hand quilt them -- it took me a couple years to hand quilt my first quilt -- I started going to a long-arm quilter so the top pile wouldn't give me guilt pangs every time I started a new one.

Split Ohio Stars, 92.5 inches/234.95 cm square, 2007?

I need to do a better job labeling my quilts (and/or putting dates on patterns and class handouts) so I know when I made them or at least started them. Time flies by so fast now I think it's been only a year and it's been three or four, and the top is still waiting to be quilted. (That's code for sent to Maggi!)

I'm excited about the New York exhibit because I'm supposed to be going. Hotel reserved and flight reservations made. But I had big plans to go to the V&A last year for that exhibit and Eyjafjallajökull ruined those so we'll see. If Mother Nature foils me again, I will have to rewatch this video from Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims' blog as consolation.

The A Word

2011-03-14T21:05:00.000-05:00

I am determined to finish my version of the mystery quilt. At least to the top stage. If I take it off the wall while I decide on borders, I might not go back to it. I needed to let the options sit for a bit so I picked up the Prairie Flowers UFO and was pleasantly surprised to find that half of the above block was already appliqued. I wonder when I did that? I swear I haven't touched this project in years except to move it out of my way.

Colors not so great in this picture.

I started this in 2004. I remember my friend Lynn and I were going to do a block a month, but only for six months, using Barbara Brackman's book. Right after that I ended up moving across country. I did one or two of the blocks while waiting to be reunited with the contents of my sewing room.

Seems like this one is missing something.

When I finish the fourth block, I think might work on a setting rather than attempt the other two blocks. Although I do have one more cut out. ...

I can feel some freezer paper behind a few of the leaves in this block.
My applique techniques leave a lot to be desired!

Decisions, decisions

2011-03-07T20:41:00.000-06:00

Option 1? String border with monkey wrench cornerstones and inner and outer border of squares.

Option 2? Checkerboard three, maybe four, squares deep.

Or maybe both with Option 2 for the inner border and Option 1 after that?

I thought the checkerboard would be too much, but my husband likes it, and it's starting to grow on me. I was thinking this would be a quick quilt, saved from the UFO pile, but once the center was done, then edged in squares, it seemed to need more, and I've got plenty of leftover bits to use up, so it won't be quick.

And, what is up with my brain these days? I typed "boarder" so many times in this post. No rooms to rent here. I've been consistently typing "their" instead of "there" for weeks now. Sent an email out with "roll" instead of "role" once and got asked if I was hungry. ... Always.

Next up

2011-03-02T19:40:00.009-06:00

The design wall was empty for about five minutes after I finished the Aboriginal top. I had these pieces from Bonnie Hunter's Roll Roll, Cotton Boll! (RRCB) quilt piled up in the sewing room. After I got far enough along in the mystery to realize I was making almost the same block as the Aboriginal top, I stopped working on it. Don't need to add to the UFO tower though so I arranged the pieces I had into something, and this is it.

This plan will use up most of the block pieces. I have to make four more string blocks, which is doable, and trim them down. And I have to figure out whether the remaining pieces -- green squares (on the left) and pink/green/pink units (on the right) -- will work into a border. I liked Bonnie's border, but it doesn't seem to match the scale of this arrangement. Have to think about the border. Suggestions welcome. I have lots of scraps and could be persuaded to piece new units for the border.

Close up of the blocks to be.

Wish I had more than a fat quarter of the pink bird paint by number fabric you see in the detail photo (if you squint). That would have made the perfect border.

Animated quilting

2011-02-25T06:02:00.007-06:00

My mom sent me a link to this video. Not sure where she saw it. (I'm pretty sure she wasn't lurking on Canada's National Film Board site.) It's fun to watch pinwheels, fans, hexagons and log cabin blocks move in time to the music and arrange themselves in different settings.

I think I spotted some fabric from my stash in there.

Top done!

2011-02-23T19:33:00.000-06:00

The top is all put together. Boy, does that take a long time! Always longer than I expect. I try to piece in groups of blocks, like four patches and nine patches, instead of in rows because the shorter seams make the assembly go faster. At least it seems that way to me. All those long row seams are so tedious.

Not sure how to quilt it or what to do about binding. Maybe a knife-edge binding? Or if regular binding, then scraps of the block fabric or the text fabric used for the half-square triangles. Decisions, decisions.

No sewing today only shoveling

2011-02-02T20:08:00.000-06:00

Looks like I've shoveled a lot. I have! But as you can see in this next photo those snow mountains are the result of the path from the door to the street and clearing just the very end of the driveway.

Still had much more shoveling to go after I took this picture. I thought I'd work from home and take shovel breaks, but I ended up shoveling and taking work breaks!

Husband's stuck in Salt Lake City so he decided to go skiing today. I feel sorry for him because, although he missed out on all this shoveling today, he will have to dig his car out of the O'Hare Airport lot tomorrow, and it is going to be a lot colder and windy then. Everyone's being warned to stay inside. No problem.

One more row to go

2011-01-30T12:02:00.000-06:00

Five blocks left to piece sounds better than "100 more half-square triangles to go!" I'm stopping at 30 blocks because that's all the cornerstone fabric I have, and the quilt will be plenty big by then: 70"x84."

Some blocks from the past week.

The binding is on Zach's quilt, labels made and attached, quilts washed and packed up. This week I'll be shipping off quilts to four boys. Just a couple more quilts to make for special people, and I can start something new relatively guilt free. Ha.

The front of Zach's quilt.

The back of Zach's quilt.

Evolution of a UFO

2011-01-16T10:17:00.000-06:00

This isn't the UFO. This is progress on the Aboriginal quilt.

Or why the Internet is evil. Before the Internet, I would procrastinate doing something by cleaning, usually the kitchen cupboards or the junk drawer. Now I read blogs. Lots of blogs. And find lots of great projects to start. Usually I can stop myself from starting them. Usually.

But recently I was lured into beginning Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt Roll Roll Cotton Boll. Hey, it could be made entirely from stash, and I wouldn't have to think, just do whatever she said each week. A nice little break from my Aboriginal quilt and avoidance of the purse and tote bag I really needed to make for the nieces.

This is part of the UFO: Fabric and sewn units from some steps.

So I pulled lots of fabric, watched for each step to be posted, and promptly fell behind because that Bonnie is a task master. Then I saw the step that called for 600 HST (that's 600 half-square triangles!) I looked at the other steps and thought, "Oh no, I'm making the same blocks as in the Aboriginal quilt. The quilt I'm trying to take a break from."

More UFO parts with other project scraps.

After a half-hearted attempt to find a fast method to make half-square triangles that was accurate without requiring lots of trimming, I have not put another stitch in this quilt, but I haven't packed it away in a drawer yet as evidenced by the piles around the quilt room. I've seen a few finished tops, and it does look quite nice, but I'm so far behind now.

Getting the focus back on the Aboriginal blocks.

Hitting the wall on the mystery quilt did prompt me to work on the purse and tote bag, and I've made a couple more Aboriginal blocks, which I think I'll concentrate on now. Although I just got the Material Obsession 2 book, and I want to make every quilt in there! And Lori's doll quilt is terribly cute ... and small ... and could be made entirely from my scraps ... and I wouldn't have to think, just do whatever she said.

Four projects in one post

2011-01-09T16:05:00.000-06:00

Back in August I stayed with my sister for a couple days. We went to Porstmouth, NH, for lunch and afterward walked around downtown, where I saw a fabric shop. I asked if I could pop in for five minutes. My sister, nieces and brother-in-law followed me in. The Portsmouth Fabric Company is an amazing place. I'd wished I'd asked for more than five minutes. One niece dragged me over to a store sample of an Amy Butler purse, then the other one wanted to show me a tote bag she'd like, but in purple. My sister found a quilt that would look great in her bedroom. Only my brother-in-law didn't ask for anything. I guess none of the purse patterns appealed to him.

On the way to the airport a couple days later, the oldest niece asked for a piece of paper. She made me this list:

I've been procrastinating on these non-quilt items, but the girls haven't forgotten. So over the holidays when I had time off and nothing special to do, I got the purse and tote done!

The pattern is Amy Butler's Frenchy bag. I think the main bag fabric is Anna Marie Horner. The pattern instructions were clear and easy to follow.

Here's the interior. If I make this bag again, I would stitch the pockets down the middle to the lining. Can't do that now, and I'm not crazy about how they gap open, but I don't think the recipient will mind. They're more like dividers than pockets. My first attempt at magnetic closures went well.

The purple tote bag was made using this tutorial from J. Caroline Creative. Also easy to follow instructions, except no mention of seam allowance that I could find. I assumed 1/2-inch (same as the Amy Butler pattern) and that seemed to work.

The tote has a zippered interior pocket (at the bottom of this photo) as well as an open pocket. Kind of hard to distinguish either pocket with all that purple.

Yesterday I was inspired to make a reversible drawstring bag with my leftover purple strips. I based the construction on Ayumi's tutorial that I've used before. Super easy, and I kept a few more scraps from going into my giant scrap bin.

I also made 11 tissue covers using Barb's tutorial. Also super easy. I'll put one in the tote and one in the purse to make up for the long wait.

End of the year finishes

2011-01-01T19:48:00.000-06:00

Maybe it was the threat of another year passing and these quilts not being complete that compelled me to stitch binding on six quilts. Yeah. Six. Now there's just the hand stitching to do. At least I won't be watching TV with idle hands for awhile.

Got the binding on one of the twin's monkey quilts done. Finally. I used a blue satin (which looks white in this pic, but isn't really) and made the binding extra wide so there'd be a good bit of it for them to touch. I've noticed that little kids like the soft feel of satin. The blue center squares are flannel, and the browns and light blue monkey print are regular quilting cotton. Hope they like the textures. The pattern is my own invention to show off the monkeys.

Here's the back. Leftover monkey fabric and a couple of very cute prints with monkeys I found after the quilt tops were done. One more identical quilt to bind, and these can be mailed. Well before their second birthday!

Also finished the binding on the orange stars for Luke. Soon as I get the binding on his brother's quilt, I can put these in the mail too. Well before they graduate from college!

This is the back of of the orange stars quilt. More orange. Of course.

I wasn't planning to do anything more with this pinwheel top, but something about it was bugging me. I used the last bits of the black with gold print to border it, and it looks much better. I'd love to add another border in red or purple, but there's not enough of either color for that. I'll just leave it on the wall for awhile to see if I'm inspired what to do next. If not, it will go into the cupboard to keep some other tops company.

Barbara Brackman has started a new blog, Civil War Quilts, where each week she'll give a pattern for an 8-inch block related to the American Civil War. There'll be stories and pictures too. A block a week. That's doable, and I could use up some of my reproduction fabrics that I haven't touched in awhile. Hmmmm.

Larry King can applique like nobody's business

2010-12-31T17:19:00.000-06:00

or so he says.

I saw this video on Kyra's Black Threads blog, and it made me laugh. Hope it brings a smile to you too.

And look at that. I'm finishing the year doing something new: posting a video to my blog.

It's a top

2010-12-19T07:37:00.000-06:00

I resisted the urge to make oven mitts and put the top together instead. I'd like a little wider print border, but I didn't have enough fabric as I had only a half yard. The top measures 24 x 27 1/2 inches. An odd size. Wall hanging maybe. I don't see it getting any bigger. Done is good. Now back to the 600 half-square triangles.

How to procrastinate with fabric

2010-12-18T10:22:00.000-06:00

Because I should be doing other things, I started a new project. I'd seen this quilt before, thought it was cute, and wasn't tempted. Then I saw it on Kathleen Tracy's blog A Sentimental Quilter, and probably also subconsciously needed to procrastinate doing something, so I immediately got to work on it. Today, it is a partially assembled top. Tonight, it could be a completely assembled top. (Although I saw these oven mitts on the Bloomin' Workshop blog, and I'm wondering if I can get my hands on the right batting today.)

Once I decided to make this, I went to the new shelves and pulled out these fabrics. I remember seeing the print at a quilt show, loving it, buying it, buying four fat quarters to go with it, and then putting the lovely grouping together in the cupboard until the right pattern came along.

I needed more variety for this project so I pulled more fabrics, and in the end only the red of the original four fat quarters made the cut. The above picture represents hours of fabric pulling and decision making!

I wasn't sure about the cutting part so I traced the template on my top before using a ruler to cut it out. I wanted to make sure the squares were squares and that I didn't wack off bits of my template trying to rotary cut around it. I should have starched this top before cutting, but I forgot. Kathleen's directions were helpful, but there's also a bit of winging it. No idea where to find a proper pattern.

Oh, and I also started Bonnie K. Hunter's "Roll, Roll, Cotton Boll" mystery quilt, and I have 600 half-square triangles to make. Yes, 600! Plus most of Step 3. ... I bet JoAnn's has Insul-Bright.

Slow progress

2010-11-15T20:47:00.000-06:00

Seventeen pieced, and six more cut out. I've been enjoying choosing all the fabrics for each block position and then cutting them. I rummage around in my stash for something else that might work in a position, then rummage some more and reject most of them before making final decisions. I love the fabric selection process. I could do that all day, but I'd have nothing to show you except a stack of fabric. Maybe you'd like that.

The only rule has been a minimum of one Aboriginal fabric per block, but as I was admiring my handiwork the other day I realized I made one without any Aboriginal fabric! I also realized as I looked at this photo, that the yellow fabric in the large half-square triangles in two of the blocks (top row second from right and second row second from left) probably needs to be in three blocks to balance out its placement.

My entry in Blogger's Quilt Festival

2010-10-31T09:47:00.000-05:00

I'm sharing this quilt for Blogger's Quilt Festival because 1) it's finished except for the label, 2) I was able to get a picture of the whole thing between wind gusts yesterday and 3) I had lots of fun putting it together.

The pattern is Girlfriends Galore by Kathy Doughty from Material Obsession's first book. I had bought a couple yards of Philip Jacob's print "Daffodils and Dogwood" around the same time I bought the Material Obsession book. I was planning on making a different pattern from the book, but these two insisted on meeting. The rest of the fabrics were pulled from my stash. I didn't have enough yardage of any one fabric so I used several fat quarters of similar colors to make up the yardage.

The different piecing sections made the quilt fun to work on. I get bored doing the same thing over and over. With this quilt there was the Lone Star center, a few set-in seams, then a triangle border, some four-patches and some half-square triangles.

Maggi Honeyman of Texas did the machine quilting on this. I hope that you can see in the picture how great her quilting is. Each section is done differently to complement the piecing. Because I used a solid backing it looks like a whole cloth quilt. That makes it reversible and is why it doesn't have a label. I'm not sure what to do because it should be documented (I regret not putting labels on some of my earlier quilts), but I want to be able to use it with either side showing. Suggestions appreciated.

Why my husband rocks!

2010-10-30T12:06:00.000-05:00

The sewing room has been undergoing a major rearranging and installation of new shelving and a bigger design wall. Thanks to my husband, this is now the best sewing room I've ever had. Here are some before and afters:

The design wall moved to where the bookcase was and got taller (no vent on this wall) and a bit wider. The design wall is batting stretched over a wooden frame and mounted to the wall. I've used this kind of design wall for years, and it works well. The fuzzier the batting, the better the sticking power.

The sewing table faces the window. Much better feng shui, and I can see what the neighbors are up to, nosy woman that I am. My husband put in a shelf for the TV, and I took out the table it was on, giving me more room.

The red drawers were under the sewing table, and now they're stacked in the corner, filled with UFOs and binding for tops that need quilting. Maybe having a tower of UFOs will remind me to pull one out when I'm ready for something different. Who am I kidding? I'd rather start something new! My goal should be to not let the number of UFOs exceed the capacity of the tower.

Where the design wall and a shelving unit were, I've got new custom shelving thanks to my husband. Everything in the old shelves and bookcase fits in the new shelving. I also managed to squeeze in a few things from the closet.

I have saved too many magazines! I need to get rid of them to make room for fabric from the closet. Any ideas what to do with old quilt magazines?

In the closet I have fabric sorted by color. (More or less. It's a mess at the moment.) In these new shelves I have fabric that isn't one partcular color, novelty prints, and stacks of fabric I put together and thought would make a great quilt once I figure out what pattern to use. Some of these stacks have been waiting years for the right pattern to come along. Maybe I should look through those old magazines before I get rid of them. ... Oh, a new project. As long as it doesn't become a new UFO. There's no room in the tower.

Happy Halloween

2010-10-30T10:02:00.000-05:00

A Halloween card from my Japanese pen pal. She always sends great cards. I love the owl and bat. I wonder where I can find something like this in the States.

Wishing you all lots of treats and no tricks!

Rounding up

2010-10-04T12:42:00.000-05:00

I've been busy around here, but not with quilting. The only quilting was yesterday when I tried to work on my Aboriginal blocks. I should have known better than to attempt anything with this head cold. An entire day of sewing and unsewing and only managed one block. (Hope this post goes more smoothly.)

Positano, Italy.

Mostly I have been busy with vacation. My friend and I went to Italy for a Cooking Vacation, and it was amazing! Our week was filled with excursions and classes. We had three hands-on cooking classes in restaurant kitchens with Positano chefs as well as trips to Pompeii, Ravello and Capri.

The cooking classes were fabulous. We made arancini, gnocchi, ravioli, pizza and mozarella among other dishes. (I'm inspired now to find my pasta maker.) After cooking, we ate the multicourse meals and drank wine. Fortunately, Positano is known as the Vertical City so we had no problem working off all those incredible meals. The city is a virtual Stairmaster!

We were all surprised that the chefs used peanut oil to cook with and olive oil as more of a garnish. They said it was because the peanut oil handled high heat better than olive oil. The chefs also chopped vegetables with some pretty small knives. Not at all what we were expecting.

Basilica, Pompeii.

How amazing is this floor mosaic?

A quilt pattern in the House of the Faun, Pompeii.

Pompeii was unbelievable. I guess I was expecting a museum, and I think there is one there, but mostly you walk around the excavated city and see what has been uncovered. The surviving paintings and the mosaics are incredible, both that they survived at all and look so great, but also because you can walk right up to them.

2009 Richardson Farm Corn Maze taken from a small plane.

After I got home, my husband's brother and his wife came for a brief visit. We took them to the World's Largest Corn Maze. Unfortunately, I think all the pictures are on my brother-in-law's camera. So here's a couple of pictures from last year's maze, which I never did blog about. Last year's had a Lincoln theme. This year they are celebrating 100 years of Scouting, and they have a new Farm Scene Investigation game to go along with one of the mazes. That was a lot of fun. We didn't make it to all the checkpoints this year because we ran out of daylight and didn't have flashlights.

My husband pretending to be lost in the maze.

Photo taken from the top of one of the bridges. Otherwise, all you can see is corn!

Halloween is in the mail

2010-09-17T07:56:00.000-05:00

I got it finished, and since this picture was taken it has been washed, dried and popped into an envelope. I'll head to the post office in a bit. Looks like I have a good chance of getting this to Japan before Halloween.

The pattern for this is my own invention, based on the block Autumn Tints. I used fabric from Minick & Simpson's Halloween Night by Moda. The quilting is straight lines on the diagonal in both directions except in the center where I quilted straight lines about an inch or so from the outer edge. I didn't want any seams or stitching in the very center so that whatever is set there wouldn't wobble.

A busy couple of weeks

2010-09-05T11:25:00.001-05:00

I made these newspaper placemats as a retirement present for my friend, who I met on my first journalism job more than 20 years ago. She was the cops reporter when I started, and when you went somewhere with her she would point out crime scenes along the way. She got me more interested in cooking and to subscribe to Bon Appetit, which I still do. Her party was great, and I got to visit with people I hadn't seen in decades, and we told lots of stories of my friend. Those were such fun times. I guess because we were young and had the energy to try anything.

I was, of course, stitching these placemats up the night before I flew back to New England for her retirement party! I adapted the pattern from Penny's napkin tutorial at Sew Take A Hike, changing the dimensions to be placemat size instead of napkin size, and using two layers of newspaper fabric so the placemats are reversible. I used solid fabrics from my stash for the border, but because I didn't have enough of one fabric for all the borders, I used a different blue for each.

I'm still plugging away at the Aboriginal blocks. This is what they looked like before I took them off the design wall to work on a Halloween table topper.

I searched through Barbara Brackman's "Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns," looking up words related to autumn (fall, leaves, pumpkins, etc.) to find a block that would work for this project. I found Autumn Tints (1103c), which seemed perfect: simple construction that could be arranged into an interesting composition that matched the tone/mood of the fabric.

I made some sketches and started piecing. The center was to be a solid piece of fabric so that if you set a vase or something on the center, it wouldn't wobble on top of a seam or cover up the piecing. The black fabric seemed too stark, and the orange was perfect, but I didn't have a big enough piece.

So I cut the biggest piece of the orange I could, and then cut out the pumpkin stripe from Minick & Simpson's great Halloween Night fabric and mitred it around the edge. When I was done, I realized I hadn't calculated correctly (looked at the finished size instead of the unfinished size when I was cutting!) so I had to add some coping strips to make it a bit bigger!

The plan all along was to use the pumpkin stripe as a mitred outside border, and I like the way it looks even though the pumpkins don't match up on the mitres. I used Harriet Hargrave and Sharyn Craig's book "The Art of Classic Quiltmaking" for a refresher on mitring.

If you've made it this far, then you get to see the lovely little bouquet of flowers my neighbor brought me yesterday when she came to check on me. I was hit by a car Friday night walking home from work. I was in the middle of a crosswalk, when a man who was stopped at the stop sign decided to drive through the intersection. He drove right into me, knocked me down and stopped on my foot. Amazingly, nothing seems to have been broken. I don't know what is more shocking: seeing a car tire parked on your foot or having someone drive into you so purposefully! I've been trying to stay off it and keep it elevated, but it is my sewing pedal foot, and I have a whole long weekend of stitching planned.

Round the block

2010-08-14T16:36:00.001-05:00

Block 9 of the Sue Ross Block of the Month is done. I machine appliqued this one, and I have to thank Harriet Hargrave for her great book "Mastering Machine Applique." In it is everything you need from machine settings and needle size to different techniques explained through words, pictures and illustrations. I used the invisible machine applique stitch that looks similar to hand applique. I learned how to machine applique from this book, and I turn to it every time I want to machine applique.

My souvenir of the Winterthur exhibit at the Milwaukee Art Museum.
Couldn't show it to you before because it was in the dishwasher.

American Quilts: Selections from the Winterthur Collection

2010-08-09T19:20:00.005-05:00

My Carpenter's Wheel has nothing to do with this post, but I don't have any pictures that do! And this is the last thing I finished, for the Sue Ross BOM, so it'll have to do.

This weekend I went to the Milwaukee Art Museum to see "American Quilts: Selections from the Winterthur Collection." The exhibit was good, but no photography was allowed, which is why there are no related photos with this post.

There were some incredible quilts, and the more closely you looked, the more you saw in them. A lot of people looked at the quilts for a few seconds and moved on. The things they missed! One white wholecloth quilt with the densest quilting I've ever seen was actually made from two quilted petticoats. Can you imagine that much work going into your underwear?

A number of wholecloth quilts were done on floral fabrics, which apparently was common for the time period. One was quilted with a feathered border, an inner border and then clamshells through the center. The quilting was hard to see on the floral fabric, and I am amazed the quilter would put that effort into something that wasn't noticeable unless you really studied the quilt. And how did she see her markings? What did she mark with?

Another quilt was made with two sizes of half-square triangles in a large variety of fabrics with newspaper sandwiched between the layers. You could see the newspaper in places where the fabric had deteriorated. I think the woman who made the quilt was married to a ship's captain so she had access to fabric from around the world, and the exhibit pointed out some of the interesting pieces in the quilt.

For hexagon fans, there is a beautiful example on display. I noticed one teenage boy pointing out to his mom how the quilter had mirrored fabric choices across the quilt. He was quite impressed with her placement. I was impressed he'd looked that closely.

My husband walked up to me when I wasn't a quarter of the way through the exhibit to say he was done, but he was going to show me his favorite quilt and then go look at what else was in the museum and to take my time. I did!

The museum is beautiful, shaped reminiscent of a sailboat and located on Lake Michigan. After viewing an impressive amount of art inside, we got coffees and sat on the terrace and enjoyed the view, the perfect summer weather and a swarm of dragonflies.

One last thing from the exhibit that made me smile was this quote from the write-up for a lone star quilt that you see in the exhibit advertising: "Despite its skillful construction, this quilt will not lie flat." We've all been there!

There's still time to see these quilts. The exhibit runs for a few more weeks, through Sept. 6.

You can find fabric anywhere!

2010-08-03T20:02:00.004-05:00

Yes, even at the EAA AirVenture, "the World's Greatest Aviation Celebration."

Not me. Another woman buying fabric, albeit with planes on it,

instead of looking at planes and plane parts with her husband.

The fabric was the highlight for me although I did enjoy seeing some of the planes like this one that we walked through.

My husband tells me this is a Galaxy C5A, one of the largest planes in the world.

There was a long line to climb the ladder up to the cockpit. See it under the "hood" of the plane? I wasn't even tempted being afraid of heights (or maybe just of falling) and that was a long way up.

This crane plane was interesting too. As was the air show. I enjoy watching the stunt pilots perform. Friday night we saw the Lt. Dan Band with Gary Sinise. We camped a couple nights and were lucky enough to end up next to two other couples we knew and the flush toilets and showers! My idea of camping. That and lots of beer. Ha.

AirVenture is pretty amazing. According to my Internet research, about 535,000 people attended this year's seven-day show run by legions of volunteers!

On the way home, we stopped at the quilt shop in Oshkosh, Quilt Essentials. It was a nice shop and I found a couple pieces on sale that came home with me. All in all, a nice long weekend.

Smoke, fire but no giant robots

2010-07-16T20:12:00.004-05:00

This was the view out of my window at work today. Filming of Transformers 3 is going on throughout the city, and apparently I saw Shia LaBeouf and Josh Duhamel running around, but didn't realize it until later in the day when I looked at some photos on the Chicago Tribune website. Like Oprah, they were little specs from where I sit.

We all marveled at the guy using a hose from the back of a truck to spray dirt over the scene to freshen up the destruction after a few hours of filming. One of my co-workers is now aspiring to be the smoke guy! That does look like a fun job.

Need to tell my nephew about this and finish up that Transformers quilt soon. Still have backing to make for it, and then to quilt it. ... At least the binding's done!

Adding to the stash ... again

2010-07-11T11:04:00.006-05:00

Didn't find the same cornerstone fabric, but found something that will work. I searched the Internet for a couple hours after I got home from the quilt shops and figured out the fabric I used was Pepper Pistachio from Momo's Wonderland (that took awhile) and it isn't available any more. Oh well.

While looking for a cornerstone substitute, I found these adorable Halloween fabrics from Minick & Simpson. I don't normally make holiday themed things, but the pumpkin stripe (which I see now I have covered up in the photo) reminded me of my Japanese penpal. I will make her a little table topper, and if I start now, I have a chance of finishing and mailing it to her in time.

When I didn't find the cornerstone fabric in the first shop I went to, I had to go to another. In both shops, I was distracted by the first bolts of fabric I saw as I walked in! The two on the left are new from Clothworks, which I found at the first shop. The purple floral from P& B was found at the second shop. I love the colors. No idea what I'll do with these. I just hope when I figure it out, I will have enough.

Everything's being washed now so I can get some sewing done this afternoon.

Traditional modern quilting

2010-07-10T10:00:00.007-05:00

The block that started it all. More photos below.

Before the long stretch of work travel, I read these posts about modern quilting. I had been thinking about modern quilting some before reading the posts. Seems to me that the current modern look is very much like old, traditional quilts yet I have the feeling the modern quilter doesn't want to have anything to do with traditional quilters. I find myself caught in the middle.

My mother quilted, starting in the mid-'70s, but I was never that interested until in my (early!) 30s when I was looking for a present for her and I wandered into a quilt shop. I was captivated by the fabric and the quilts and took a class. I've been quilting for more than a dozen years now.

I took lots of classes, learning as much as I could about different techniques so that I could make what I wanted the way I wanted. I've followed patterns, more so in the beginning, but I prefer to make up my own designs and pick my own fabric, which is the best part.

I look at the current modern stuff and it reminds me of my beginning quilting: simple designs, lots of white. I like it, but I don't want to make it. Nor do I want to make a Dear Jane quilt. And that's why I feel caught in the middle. Caught between too simple and too complicated. Current modern and traditional. Trying to find my own style by taking a little from this and a little from that, appreciating it all, but not feeling obligated to be one thing or the other.

I started this blog to document the things I was doing (so I could remember when, how, why) and so I'm taking the process pledge and will try to be more articulate about my choices.

Here goes:

Picking fabrics one block at a time.

That block at the start of this post started it all. I was working on the Sue Ross BOM and had ordered some Aboriginal fabric from Material Obsession. The fabric and the pattern came together in my head and I made one block. Liked it, and decided a bigger quilt was in order.

Normally my fabric selection process is to pull a bunch of fabrics, decide what goes together and use that pile. This time I made one block, and decided the background and corner squares would be the constants through all the blocks, and every block should have some Aboriginal fabric in it. Then I chose the fabrics for each block, pulling from my stash as I went, and not paying attention to how all the fabrics look together in a pile. They do seem to look OK piled together, but I'm not sure I would have pulled this particular pile of fabric if I had used my usual selection process.

Tools of the trade include a remote.

I make my half-square triangles bigger and trim them down. I'm a little anal retentive about accuracy.

Here's where I'm at: Six blocks made. Enough cornerstone fabric for 11 blocks. Enough background for 10. Wanting to make a much bigger quilt. Thinking of setting the blocks solid instead of the original vision for sashing.

So off to the quilt shop to see if I can find more of that background and cornerstone fabric.

6 states, 5 days, and only 1 quilt shop

2010-07-06T20:05:00.011-05:00

We didn't fly over the fireworks this Fourth. Weather wasn't cooperating. Plus we are old and have trouble staying up late enough to watch the fireworks, put the plane back and drive home (over an hour away). Pitiful. At least we haven't started lining up for the early-bird dinner special yet!

Sleeping Giant from our hotel in Helena, Montana.

I had said I was going to post some pictures of our April vacation so here they are. Just a few. We had plans, they fell through and so at the last minute we decided to take our plane to visit five of the six U.S. states I haven't been to yet. (Can't make it to Hawaii with our plane.)

We picked state capitals except for Kansas, where we chose a place with a good barbecue restaurant. I'm sure they have some in Topeka, but there's one right next to the runway in Paola!

Day 1: First stop is Bismark, North Dakota. Sorry no photos. We stopped for lunch. I had a quilt shop picked out for a visit. Hubby wanted to keep going. We did.

Next stop: Helena, Montana. Beautiful scenery. A very nice guy who used to live in Chicago gave us a ride to a hotel. Also had a quilt shop picked out for Helena. We didn't go.

Leaving Montana and headed into the Rockies. Not so great visibility for a while.

Flying over the Rockies.

Day 2: We stopped in Nampa, Idaho. My husband was so excited because he saw Bob "The Hurricane" Hannah walking across the tarmac. I had/have no idea who he is.

View from the Nampa, Idaho, airport cafe.

Derek and Carmen had their reception here. The TSA was not invited.

Lunch in Nampa. I had a quilt shop picked out in the Nampa/Boise area. We didn't go. Seeing a pattern here? Then on to Salem, Oregon. We arrived about 10 minutes after the general aviation place closed so we walked with our luggage over to the main terminal. Derek and Carmen were having their wedding reception in the terminal. We found out later that no commercial flights had been in or out of the Salem Airport in about a year! Fortunately, signs advertising hotels had enough current information we were able to find a place to stay, and they sent a hotel shuttle for us.

Day 3: I had a quilt shop picked out for Salem too. And I got to go because we stayed the whole next day in Salem. Greenbaum's Quilted Forest was amazing. I spent a couple hours in the quilt shop while my husband wandered around downtown and the park along the river. Then we went to the Haillie Ford Museum of Art, which was exhibiting work by the senior art majors. I would have loved to have brought home one of the sculptures of extinct animals created with found metal pieces, but it wouldn't fit in the backseat.

Downtown Salem on a Sunday was pretty interesting. The Reed Opera House is full of shops and we had a coffee there and read all about Cyrus Adams Reed. What a character!

The Cascades (and Rockies) were close!

Day 4: Back through the Cascades and a fuel stop in Idaho. Then on through the Rockies to Steamboat Springs, Colorado, for our overnight. My husband said it was the only runway he's had to climb to reach. It was a little scary landing here.

Steamboat Springs during "mud season," which is after ski season and before summer.

Flying over Colorado.

Day 5: Kansas for barbecue and then on back home. We beat the weather getting out of town and again getting back, leaving a couple days at home recovering before we had to go back to work.

Happy Birthday, USA

2010-07-04T10:51:00.004-05:00

Fourth fabric because every post needs a picture, and I haven't made any more progress on this UFO, which is having its seventh birthday this year. I hope they'll be cake.

Hope everyone is enjoying the Fourth of July. We had our burgers and dogs last night with some fireworks. Maybe more fireworks tonight. We're thinking of going up in our small plane to view them from the air.

For yesterday's party, I made potato salad using this Tyler Florence recipe. I've made it before and it is amazingly good, which is saying something because I don't like potato salad or mayo or pickles! Just be sure to halve the mayo as the reviewers suggest.

Somebody's quilting, but it's not me

2010-07-01T19:54:00.009-05:00

Got two quilts back from my longarm quilter, Maggi Honeyman.

She did a fabulous job on the Girlfriends Galore pattern. Each diamond in the star center has a leaf design, and each border around the center is quilted differently to complement the shapes in those borders. You can really see the border treatment on the back (although maybe not as well with my photo.) Looks like a whole-cloth quilt.

William Morris got some special treatment too. I love the feathered border and the interior is a similar pattern that fills the little squares jutting into the border.

I was so excited to see the quilting and take pictures that some of the photos are a little blurry from my jumping for joy.

Maggi has quilted my quilts for years now. We used to both live in Florida, then she moved to Texas, and I moved to Illinois. When I have something I really like and want it to be treated to more than my expert straight-line quilting with a walking foot or feeble free-motion attempts, I send it to her. I tell her a little bit of what I'm thinking for the quilting, but ultimately leave it in her hands because I trust what she's done with my quilts in the past and know I won't be disappointed. Isn't it great when you are the same wavelength as someone else?

No more work travel for awhile I hope. Now maybe I can get back to quilting if only to pack up a couple more quilt tops for someone to help me finish.

Floored by these designs

2010-06-06T19:27:00.003-05:00

Chanced upon this at the library the other day. Lots of inspiration in these designs made with squares and half-square triangles. Many of the "Tile Designs" are from decorations inside and outside of Middle Eastern buildings, but they look like familiar quilt designs too.

Finally finished!

2010-06-05T16:50:00.004-05:00

The front.

This quilt is sort of a quilt-as-you-go even though there's no batting. You sew the blocks together and cover the seam allowances on the back with strips. I had started by sewing one side of a strip into the seam and then folding in the seam allowance and appliqueing the other side down. Does that make sense?

The back.

Anyway, one strip was all it took for me to realize I would never finish the quilt if I hand stitched all those strips! So I pressed the strip seam allowances under, pinned the strips over the exposed seams and machine stitched the sides down. It meant the stitching shows on the front, which doesn't thrill me, but at this point finished was the primary goal!

The fabrics: bright pink, yellows, golds and navy. The color combination inspired by the pink and yellow floral on navy background. I had a fat quarter of it, which was just enough.

This would have been done sooner, but I got distracted by "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest," which is really good. Each book in the triology has been better than the last. And, the book is so thick you really get a workout holding it up in bed!

On tour without the bus

2010-05-23T12:22:00.006-05:00

By tomorrow noon, I will have been to 14 different airports in 33 days. Some of the travelling was vacation and some work with more work travel coming up in the next few weeks. No sewing around here so I consoled myself with a brief stop at the local quilt shop while running errands.

Five fat quarters that struck my fancy. No plans for any of them. Yet.

I picked up five fat quarters and an issue of Quiltmania. I think I need to subscribe. It's pricey, but so much more inspiring than any of the other magazines I have. We were talking about this at the shop. Most of the magazines show very simple quilts that I can easily draft myself and don't really get me excited about making or they are contest winners that while beautiful aren't tops I'll make.

Quiltmania seems different. Not sure exactly what it is. I bought issue No. 76 based on two quilts that I couldn't look at long enough! Studying them I was struck by how the fabric choices made such a huge contribution to the overall look of the quilt. The quilts appear complicated and busy at first glance, but are fairly simple. The pattern, value and placement of the fabrics makes all the difference.

I'm glad I'll have something to occupy me for the next flight. Now, I 'm off to pack. Again.

Carbon dating my UFOs

2010-05-03T06:21:00.003-05:00

One of the blocks is turned the wrong way. It's fixed now.

All the blocks for this string quilt UFO are done. It was part of a guild fun night, but as I didn't write the year on the handout I can only estimate that it was started before 2004. Possibly before 2002! And I still like it. Sometimes when the UFOs are that old, you aren't as into the fabric choices as you were when you first picked them out.

This is a summer quilt, meaning their is no batting. The strips are sewn to a fabric square, and the squares are sewn together with sashing on the back to finish those seams. I had enough fabric for 36 9.5-inch blocks and will set it 5 x 7 to get a quilt 45" x 63".

Not sure why I didn't finish it earlier except that the only thread I'd brought with me to fun night was a khaki grey color that I usually use for piecing and the bobbin thread shows on the back. If I'd known what we were doing I would have matched the bobbin thread to the backing squares. It bugged me at the time, but 6, 8 or more years later, I'm over it.

A clean house is a sign of a broken sewing machine

2010-04-28T20:06:00.008-05:00

Just returned from a trip (more on that later) where I was able to shop at Greenbaum's Quilted Forest. OMG what a great shop! In 2007, American Patchwork and Quilting magazine named the store one of the 20 best quilt shops in the United States and Canada.

Above is my haul. I was very restrained. Probably because there was so much to look at that I was constantly distracted from one pretty piece of fabric by another pretty piece of fabric. Also because I don't really need anything.

I ended up buying a few bits that related to things going through my mind lately, such as Laura Gunn's Lantern Bloom, the new Gerta collection that I'd read about the night before, and three pieces with text on them, including a half yard of "Housework Whenever?" by Sharon Yenter for In The Beginning fabrics.

That's where I got the title for this post. The fabric has retro images of women with quotes, including:

I got a sewing machine for my husband! Good trade, huh?

If I sit here long enough maybe they will fix their own dinner!

I sent my son to college so I could keep my fabric in his room ... expensive storage!

I also got a couple pieces of Aboriginal fabric to add to the ones in this block I made right before the trip.

The pattern is block No. 6 from the Sue Ross Block of the Month that I'm doing through Material Obsession. This is going to be a quilt as soon as I make more blocks and figure out how to set them.

Speaking of the BOM, here is block No. 7. All done. Piecing was not too hard, and the templates made it easy to cut accurately, which always helps. Appliqueing the piecing to the background is where I have trouble. This was one of my better efforts. Not too wobbly a circle at all.

What's black and white and red all over?

2010-04-15T19:14:00.005-05:00

A Kindle cover for my friend Lynn. The pattern by Sherry Cowley was in the January "Quilter's Home" magazine. It was easy to make. Hope it fits a Kindle. I don't have one to test with. Boo.

I made it with the optional pocket. In the magazine, there were reading glasses in the pocket, but isn't the beauty of an eReader that you can make the point size as big as you need it to be?

I love this fabric. It wasn't the fabric I'd planned to use. The fabric I'd planned to use said "Lynn" to me more than this, but I couldn't find it. I'd set the fabric aside with the pattern, and then when I went to make this I could find only the fabric for the inside. I searched for an hour, pulling fabric stacks from the shelves, digging through UFO drawers and various other places I keep fabric. Finally I gave up and picked this because it kept with my color joke and the present was going to be late anyway, but needn't be that late. Then after I cut this out, I found my original fabric. I really should have learned by now that any time I put something in a special place so I don't lose it, I will not find it until I've given up looking!

If you are looking for a good read might I suggest "The Ghost Trap" by K. Stephens? Although after reading that and "Her Fearful Symmetry" by Audrey Niffenegger in tandem, I needed something light. "Ella Minnow Pea" by Mark Dunn and now "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" seem to be fitting the bill. Both are humorous and written in epistle. The later reminds me of "84 Charing Cross Road," which I read ages ago and loved.

And the winner is ...

2010-04-13T19:14:00.003-05:00

ME!

I won this lovely commemorative panel from Sue. I've been reading her blog and others who have been posting about the V&A exhibit "Quilts: 1700-2010." The panel arrived yesterday, and it is so soft and silky. A short post this one so I can go pet my panel and imagine her in various quilt layouts.

Can anyone help me with a Google Reader question? I have added numerous (too numerous) subscriptions to my Reader and have organized them under various categories (Quilting, Fabric Shops, Fabric Designers, Food, etc.). Since then I've tried Following blogs, but then it adds the blog to a new category called "Blogs I'm following." And it seems that if I try to move the blog to one of my categories, that it also stays under "Blogs I'm following" so that I have double the embarrasingly long list of blogs in my Reader. Clearly Google has not anticipated my need for categorization. So I've removed most of the following until I can figure out how to effectively organize Reader without having every blog link appear twice in the list. Any suggestions?

Not much to show from this weekend

2010-03-29T20:20:00.004-05:00

Made a little progress on the next Sue Ross block of the month this weekend. Still have to applique it to the orange background fabric (not shown). Despite the complex look of the block, it was fairly easy to piece. The templates made cutting the pieces easy.

I realized I didn't have a picture of the finished Girlfriend's Galore top so I persuaded my husband to hold it up outside where I had a better chance of getting the whole thing in the picture. It was really windy, and this ended up being the best picture I could manage.

C'mon to my house

2010-03-22T06:19:00.005-05:00

This weekend I made a few house blocks for Bumble Beans (see sidebar). It was fun digging through the scrap bin looking for pieces large enough for the different parts, that sort of went together colorwise and that had an animal on them. The animal wasn't a requirement, but I thought that made the blocks more fun.

I learned something in the process: I have more cow-themed fabrics in the scrap bin than other animals. (Not all the cows made it into the houses.) I'm not entirely sure what this says about me, but I didn't know it until yesterday.

Now I need to get them in the mail.

A foggy day in London town

2010-03-20T09:53:00.004-05:00

sure beats all this snow in Chicago. Yesterday it was 65 F and sunny. Today it's snowing with 1 to 3 inches predicted. And besides the better weather (53 F in London compared to 35 in Chicago), London is where you can see the Victoria and Albert Museum's exhibit "Quilts: 1700 - 2010" which opened today.

Bishops Court quilt, Unknown, 1690-1700,

Wish I could go. Instead, I have to live vicariously through the Internet. I borrowed the picture above from the V&A website, and you can see more photos on these blogs: A Quilter's Journal and The Cotton Patch, which I found through Barbara Brackman's blog. I've been following the exhibit's progress via the blog of its curator, Sue Prichard.

Besides the fabulous antique quilts and the potentially-controversial modern quilts on display, the museum shop is offering 18 reproduction fabrics through a collaboration with Liberty Art Fabrics.

Speaking of Liberty, I'd planned a trip to Target today to see what their Liberty products were like, but I'm wondering if there'll be anything left in the store as I'm noticing lots of "out of stock" notes on the website. Do I brave the stormy weather to look at empty shelves or do I settle into the sewing room to celebrate National Quilting Day, which is today!

The National Quilting Association is offering a free project pattern to help you celebrate. I certainly have enough tops to quilt and UFOs to work on to keep me busy. Or I could start something new. No shortage of ways to celebrate!

A bright block for a dull weekend

2010-03-14T19:09:00.004-05:00

This is about all I have to show for the weekend: Block 6 of the Sue Ross BOM. I really like it. Toying with the idea of making a whole quilt with this block. It wouldn't take many as the block finishes at 14 inches.

I made a back for my version of Girlfriends Galore, but opted not to take a picture of an 82 1/2" x 98" rectangle of solid green fabric. A beautiful green to be sure, but hardly worth a thousand words.

I'm not wearing any (long) underwear

2010-03-07T17:57:00.005-06:00

Woo hoo! It's 41 degrees (5 Celsius) right now. If only it were sunny. But that was yesterday, and I hadn't finished this top so I couldn't snap a picture then. Please forgive the not right colors. Those orange stars are really red, and the yellow is much brighter.

I had planned to have this top done a couple months ago, but had to wait until the quilt shop got in a new shipment of the solid blue as I didn't have nearly enough. Just couldn't get inspired to do another setting for these stars after I'd drafted this one. I think it was worth the wait.

Last weekend I made backs for a couple quilts. Not exactly post-worthy sewing.

Where the sun doesn't shine: Chicago

2010-02-21T18:55:00.006-06:00

Gratuitous fabric photo because no one likes a quilting blog

without photos and that squirrel fabric is just too cute.

Today I went to the first meeting of the Chicago Modern Quilt Guild. I'm getting excited about this group. I miss belonging to a guild. I was very active in my Orlando guild. When we first moved to the Chicago area I joined the local guild, but there were too many things going on (new job, new employees, selling a house, buying a house, husband diagnosed with cancer) that I made only one meeting. Even now, I haven't been able to swing the weeknight meetings. Heck, I've cancelled my last two hair appointments because of work interference on a weeknight. (Roots aren't as bad as I thought they'd be.) Looks like this group will be meeting on weekends. Yeah!

Everyone had lots of great ideas for things we can do. A few people brought show and tell. That's something I really miss: Looking at other people's quilts and seeing what fabric, quilting and patterns they used.

When I came home from the meeting, I found that a Girl Scout had visited while I was out. What more could I want than seeing, touching and talking quilts and then having a box of Thin Mints waiting for me? Sunshine. Yes, more snow forecast for tonight and tomorrow.

Haven't sewed much lately. (Been shoveling.) I did finally finish my Sue Ross block of the month for month 1 (month 6 should arrive any day now). I've started prepping block 5, which is applique, which means, like block 1, which was hand piecing, it will take me some time to get it done. I'm not big on hand sewing, except for binding. I like sewing binding. How weird is that? Can I trade anyone binding for applique?

Where's your sense of adventure?

2010-02-08T19:31:00.006-06:00

Just got back from a few days of babysitting my sister's children. Apparently my husband has no idea where the grocery store is. So first thing I did after the taxi dropped me off at the house was head out for a sandwich before food shopping. Then it was time to empty the suitcase in the washer!

I brought books, quilting magazines and Block 1 and 5 of the Sue Ross BOM with me. I'm not sure how long I thought the girls would be in school during the day, but it was not long enough for all that I brought. Nor was the Chicago-Boston flight! I was able to read Jean Wells' Intuitive Color & Design on the plane. I don't normally read quilt books, but I read this one cover to cover, and I'd like to work my way through the assignments in the book.

There was no sewing or reading when the girls were around, but we had lots of fun: Made Valentines for both their classes, went to the Currier Museum (great little museum), painted ceramics at the mall (glossy finish with sparkles, of course), and went to two dance classes and two soccer games (indoor).

My friend Beth (from college) visited one night, and right after we ordered pizza, the whole neighborhood lost power. The girls seemed a little freaked out by this, asking if we could drive somewhere where they have electricity.

"Where's your sense of adventure?" Beth asked them.

"Pretend your Laura Ingalls," I said.

"Who?"

I'll be mailing them a copy of Little House on the Prairie soon.

The delivery guy found the house in complete darkness, and we ate by Yankee Candle-light (melon and harvest scented). Thankfully the lights came on about an hour later.

Arf! Arf!

2010-02-01T20:46:00.005-06:00

Liking the new ironing board cover.

This is what I have to show for the weekend. It took me all day Saturday to sew the final borders on my olive green Material Obsession quilt because I was so distracted thinking about this Scotty dog, which I saw here. And then again somewhere else. So finally, I just gave up and pulled fabric.

Yeah, picking fabrics is messy.

I think I was a little influenced by this to pick red, which is my favorite color, and then the link to Jane Brocket's post. Red probably accounts for the largest color in my stash. And yet, I don't make that many red quilts or quilts with red in them. Can count them on one hand. Hmmmm. Wonder why.

Easy pattern by Denyse Schmidt. Took awhile to sew though, and that's how I spent my Sunday. I had done the box corner thing only once before. I don't think I'd attempt making Scotty with smaller squares.

There's more than one way to piece a block

2010-01-24T08:40:00.014-06:00

Confession time: I am a lazy quilter. I don't like to piece more seams than necessary. I also want to rotary cut everything I can. So when I decided Kansas Dugout blocks were the right choice for my William Morris fabric, I needed to figure out a way to piece them that would work with pre-cut strips and a minimum of seams.
The above diagram shows the way I was familiar with piecing the block. All that cutting and piecing to end up with a square? Just cut a square.

Please excuse the drawing. I was experimenting with Google Docs.

Obviously need more practice.

I found the above piecing method too. And this neat quilt made with that construction method. But, ew, templates.

If you look at the quilt as a whole and not at a single block, then you can see how alternating rows of squares and "other pieces" can be put together to form the Dugout block. Of course, this requires planning ahead and arranging the entire quilt before sewing. This is what floors are for.

The "other pieces" can easily be cut without a template too. Yeah, rotary cutter! I figured the sizes for the shapes by drawing out the block on graph paper, assuming a 2-inch finished center square, which is what I could cut from the jelly roll strips.

To cut the "other pieces," trim a 45-degree angle from one end of one strip.

Leaving the 45-degree line on the top edge of the strip, slide the ruler so that the cut edge aligns along the 5 1/8-inch mark and cut.

Flip the ruler, align the 45-degree line along the bottom edge and make sure the ruler is 5 1/8 inches from lower right corner to cut edge. Cut.

I was able to cut four "other pieces" and four squares from each strip. Enough for two dugouts.

Piecing was easy too. Every other row is all squares. Hardest part is keeping them in the right order. The other rows are the "other pieces."

Overlap them slightly so that the quarter-inch seam line intersects the two pieces where they meet.

I pressed the seams open and trimmed the dog ears. Much easier to do now then later. I may be lazy, but I'm also rather anal. Those dog ears will just plague you later when you're quilting the top. It's worth the effort to get rid of them now. Same with thread ends. Laziness has its limits.

Once the rows are all sewn, sew the rows together and you're done except for borders.

I'm I the only one who finds block construction so interesting?

I love you, William Morris!

2010-01-18T19:50:00.005-06:00

Don't tell my husband.

I tried to get a decent picture of my William Morris quilt, and this seems to be the best I can do. It's not been very sunny here the last few weeks so the light isn't great. And, there's no good place in the house to put the quilt to take a picture of the whole thing. I spread it out on the floor by the dining room table and then balanced on the staircase so that the railing wasn't in the way. How do you get a good picture of a large quilt?

Hope you get the idea from these two pictures. I bought a jelly roll of Barbara Brackman's Morris Workshop fabric at my local quilt shop last fall. It was my first jelly roll. I bought it so I could have a little bit of every fabric in the line. I wanted more than a little, but couldn't justify it.

Got the fabric home and started the hunt for the right project. Something that could be cut from 2 1/2-inch wide strips. Something where I wouldn't have to add any other fabric to the main part of the quilt. I wanted it to be nothing but beautiful William Morris fabric! Pauline Smith's Blooms Quilt from Kaffe Fassett's "Country Garden Quilts" was the answer with a little redrafting of the Kansas Dugout block.

I bought another jelly roll a couple weeks ago. French General's Rouenneries. It's screaming, "Stars!" to me. Rather loudly for such an elegant, refined collection. I think maybe the cover quilt from the same Kaffe Fassett book. I need more than just one jelly roll for that pattern so I'll be forced -- yes, forced -- to buy some yardage too.

Close but no cigar

2010-01-17T16:55:00.003-06:00

Some of this is pieced and some of it is stuck on the design wall. Either way, it looks like I'll have to redraft the connector blocks. They're too big for easing in unless I want to add textural quality to my quilt. But then I'd have to repeat it elsewhere in the top to make it look purposeful instead of being an indication of horrible sewing ability, and I'm too far along for that. So instead I'll draft two new connector blocks.

I'm really liking the way this is coming along. I'm using the floral four-patches with the most lilac in them in the outer most row to try to pull that color all the way through the top. I wish I had some lilac in the center star though. Too bad none of my lime sherbert fabrics have lilac in them. There is one olive green print with white flowers that I've thought of coloring lilac with fabric crayons or maybe adding some lilac stitching in the center star. What do you think?

I picked up a little more of the Phillip Jacobs' print to make sure I had enough for the final border. Hadn't planned on it, but I was at the shop to check whether they'd gotten in their order of a blue solid I need to set the Transformer blocks. They hadn't. I bought a blue, green, red and yellow striped fabric to use instead. How? I don't know. If I haven't thought of a new setting before the order comes in, then I won't need a Plan B!

Measuring up

2010-01-02T10:52:00.005-06:00

The half-diamond border didn't quite work out the way the instructions said. I checked my quarter-inch by sewing together two 2-inch wide strips, pressing and checking the sewn strip is 3.5 inches wide. It was accurate, so maybe I cut wrong. I didn't use as many half-diamonds as the pattern called for and ended up trimming the strip to equal the width of the star block. Also had to trim the width of the strip a tad too to make it 2.5 inches.

I've pieced the half-square triangles and four-patches and laid them out. They look a little too large in scale, but once sewn I think they'll be OK. I'm debating swapping the pale green and lavendar four-patches, but I'm not sure I have enough fabric to do that.

I also still need to cut the lavendar triangles to go along the floral border. I'm trying to use some of these odd rulers I've collected over the years like the directions call for, but I think there's a mistake in the instructions for this part. If you don't have the ruler, you're supposed to cut a 5.25-inch square and then cut it along the diagonal twice to get four quarter-square triangles, but that makes too small a triangle to fit against the 4.5-inch half-square triangle blocks. I think I've figured out the correct size now so I'll be able to figure out whether I'm cutting them correctly with the triangle ruler. That's next for today and finishing up the four-patches, etc. for the other sides.

If you are making the Girlfriends Galore pattern, I found a couple other minor mistakes. For example, you are supposed to cut 20 strips of the starburst fabric, but I needed only 10 strips to get the 158 squares called for. Of course, if you are fussy cutting, you will need more, but probably not twice as many strips.

I find it's always a good idea to double check the instructions before cutting and to check the size of your blocks against the size the pattern says you should have! Voice of experience.

See those quarter-inch blue strips around each sashing square? They are there because I cut the sashing as instructed, which was about a half inch too short for my blocks. I really wanted to use that fabric and so had to figure out a way to add a half inch to the length. And, what a pain to keep the same blue around each square. I learned my lesson: Calculate twice, cut once.

Wild Goose Variation quilt by Mabeth Oxenreider is a free pattern available on P&B Textiles website. I made this around 2002, I think. Resolution for 2010: Label the finished quilts!

Progress, Girlfriends

2009-12-30T21:11:00.003-06:00

It was sunny for the first time in a couple weeks and I hope this picture shows the true colors of the floral print. I'm counting on the sun because it won't be due to my photography skills.

The star is pieced and came together fairly painlessly. I've got half of the squares and triangles set in too. No problems there either. Yeah!

I'm on vacation this week and enjoying sewing and cooking. One of my resolutions from last year(s) that I did nothing with was to organize my recipes. I've made a dent! Actually, more progress than in past attempts. But certainly will not finish before year's end. And, found two more recipes to try in today's food section so. ...

I'm trying to distinguish between tried-and-will-make-again recipes and haven't-tried-yet-but-will ones. How do you do that? Recycled a bunch of clippings that I decided I would not in any real-world scenario ever actually make because they were too complicated, would take too long or required an ingredient I was not likely to find without a great deal of effort on my part and therefore was not likely to even look for. I'm so lazy in my old age! Or maybe just more realistic.

It always starts with fabric

2009-12-29T08:26:00.006-06:00

Found this Phillip Jacobs' print at the local quilt shop when I was looking for something to go with the Transformers fabric. No, I did not think the Rowan colors and prints would match Megatron, but you never know what you will find where so you must look at everything in the shop.

The Transformer star blocks are all done, and I've decided on a setting, but need another 2.5 yards of solid blue that is currently on-order at the shop, so I had no choice but to find a suitable pattern for the Daffodils and Dogwoods. I think this is it: The "Girlfriends Galore" pattern from Material Obsession's book.

I buy a lot of fat quarters so I don't have the yardage the pattern calls for, but a bunch of fat quarters in similar colors will substitute for each single fabric in the pattern, with the print above substituting for the the light green floral. I hope I have enough. Would hate to have to go back to the shop to buy more and be forced to look at everything again.

I spent the good part of a day cutting out the diamonds for the center star. It takes longer to cut when you go scrappy, but it's worth the effort. So much texture.

I got part of it pieced, and I'm really liking the way it is coming together although the photo isn't so great. I'll cut as I get to each section so I can change my mind about what fabrics to use along the way. Kathy Doughty did such a good job with the fabric placement in her pattern. When I studied the composition, trying to figure out what fabrics to use in mine, I was really impressed by what she did. I like this pattern so much more than when I started!

Mapping out a new career

2009-12-13T09:41:00.007-06:00

A friend of mine from work who knows I quilt, sent me this link. What a cool idea: Map quilts. I need to think up a great idea like this and start a new career. I like the idea that each quilt made would be different. I'd get too bored doing the same thing over and over. And it's unique. You need a niche to set your creations apart.

I didn't feel comfortable inserting a photo of a soft map quilt from the Haptic Lab site on my blog so you'll have to head over there yourself to check them out. But so that this post isn't just words, here's a quilt of mine that's related. It was made for a guild challenge in 2003. The theme was "Florida State of Mind." I was living in Orlando then.

All the blocks that make up the quilt are somehow related to Florida. The land area is covered with Alabama and Georgia blocks for the neighboring states; Tallahassee and Key West for those areas; Cypress, Orange Peel and Sunshine for those symbols of the state; Seminole piecing for our Native Americans; Crackers for what native Floridians call themselves; and President's Choice for the role the state played in the 2000 Presidential election. The water area is Ocean Waves and Storm at Sea for the annual hurricane season.

The backing is flamingos, of course.

This quilt was machine and hand pieced and appliqued, and machine quilted. This really was a challenge! I used every technique I knew and tried some I hadn't before. While I'm proud of what I accomplished, when it was finished I could clearly see where different choices in value would have made it much better. I should have kept the land green and the water blue, but made the greens dark and the blues light. Then within the greens used lighter darks and darker darks to distinguish the values in the blocks themselves. Same with the blues.

Every once in a while I think, I should make that again and do it right. Then I think, I must be crazy to make another of the same thing. Maybe a different state? Maine, where I grew up. I have some great lobster fabric. Hmmm. Maybe all 50 states? Maybe. Someday. I need to be a little more crazy first.

Mr. Morris, say good bye to Megatron

2009-12-12T11:55:00.004-06:00

You can see a bit of the William Morris at the bottom of this picture. For a while he was up there with these fussy-cut Transformers stars. I had to get him down. Quickly.

Now I can concentrate on these stars. Not exactly sure what the big plan is, but the test block (the green one) came out OK. So at least I know what the block will be. I decided I didn't want to make the stars different sizes, so figured out what size could be used for cutting Megatron, Bumblebee, Optimus Prime and Barricade out of this fabric I found online. Quality is crap, but there wasn't much choice of Transformers fabric on the world wide web. I bought the only yard and a half I could find. Hope my nephew still likes them by the time this is done!

I didn't want to make sawtooth stars. Too boring. And I might need to make 20 of these. Or more. To help keep my interest that long I switched up the proportions on the star points and then drew out the pieces to exact size so I could make freezer paper templates and start cutting this at night. We have a no-math-after-dark rule in this house and several cautionary tales to accompany it. Because I wasn't reading numbers on the ruler, I felt I could bend the house rule against rotary cutting after dark.

The only tricky bit is lining up the odd angles so that the points meet where all four pieces come together. I think I'll cut quite a few (during the day today -- not going to press my luck) and then piece them all at once. After a few I should be able to eyeball the placement and it will go quickly, and I need to make room on the wall for some ideas backing up in my head.

Today's weather: 2F, feels like -18F

2009-12-10T18:40:00.004-06:00

That's -16C, feels like -28C if you're into Metric. How exactly anyone can tell the difference between 2F and -18F is beyond me. As I walked to the train this morning, my eyes watered constantly -- no doubt to keep them from freezing -- and soaked my face and scarf. Where's this global warming all the kids are talking about?

I finished this top last weekend. When I started it, I thought it might be the backing for another quilt, which I haven't posted about. (Then again I haven't posted.) But this one isn't big enough and I rather like it more than the other one so it's deserving of a top all its own.

The inspiration for this came from a posting on Fibercopia that I sketched on the back of a grocery list and kept with other piles of scribbled ideas until it was time. I have lots of notebooks, but they never seem to be within reach when I get an idea.

Happy Halloween!

2009-10-31T10:02:00.003-05:00

Spider-shaped pumpernickel bread! And in keeping with the quilt theme of this blog, it's on a Gee's Bend tin plate.

Bought this at the bakery for a potluck. I thought it was a little gross looking, but it was gobbled right up. Not as gross looking as this hand-shaped meatloaf from Not Martha though.

Oprah was outside my window

2009-09-23T21:05:00.004-05:00

More than two weeks ago, (I'm a little behind in my posting) this was the view outside my work window. That little yellow speck is Oprah, who appeared after the audience spent hours learning to dance and watching sound checks for the Black-Eyed Peas (the specks to the left of Oprah's speck), James Taylor, Jennifer Hudson and Rascal Flatts.

This being a quilt blog, we'll now move to something quilt related. My mother sent us kids boxes of stuff from her recently-sold house. She's moving to a smaller place. Among the stuff in my boxes was this quilt she made my dad's mother in 1973.

She had my grandmother's children, their spouses and their children write their names and then she embroidered them on hourglass blocks. My brother, Joey, was four when he wrote his name on the square below.

My mom helped me make this signature quilt for my wedding:

And 10 years later I made this one for my brother-in-law's wedding:

Signature quilts are such fun to look at. I love the drawings the children at the wedding made on my quilt, which hangs in the stairwell so I see it every morning as I head for my coffee. Sometimes my eyes are even open.

Snoring is my revenge

2009-08-30T13:32:00.009-05:00

Nightly there is a battle of the bed covers, which I invariably lose. Not so much a problem during the summer, but we haven't really had one this year. Last night, after the annual block party, we slept under this:

Stack-n-Whack, pattern by Bethany Reynolds.

The quilt is probably 10 years old. I really should label these things, but by the time I finished this queen-size top I was so sick of it I almost didn't get it quilted. Fortunately there are long-armers so I didn't have to look at it any more. By the time I got it back I didn't detest it. It's definitely not a favorite, but it fits the bed.

And this:

Half Log Cabin, technique by Sharyn Squier Craig. Beautifully quilted by Maggi Honeyman.

I took this class in 1997 when I was relatively new to quilting. I like how the variety of background fabrics bring texture to the quilt. Unfortunately, I didn't have the same variety in the darks. Probably I was trying too hard to match colors and limited the number of different fabrics I used.

And this:

2002 Florida Cabin Fever Quilt Guild mystery quilt.

The real solution was Aunt Sukey's Choice, but I was playing around with the pieced units before the last clue and liked my solution better because it was more suited to the Asian fabric. This is one of my favorite quilts. I wish I'd had enough fabric to make it bigger, and that I hadn't experimented with black bobbin thread.

The block party was great even though it was quite chilly. We have the best neighbors, and every year on the last Saturday in August the street is blocked off, we set up tables and chairs in the streets, fire up the grills, play games and share appetizers, salads and desserts.

We lost seven trees this year on our block to Dutch Elm disease so there's no good way to string up the volleyball net. Instead one of the adult games was to guess which famous persons' name was written on the stickers on our foreheads by asking each neighbor two yes-or-no questions. My husband guessed he was Oprah after just three questions!

Don't look now! is having an unbelievable giveaway, and I am shamelessly plugging it here in order to get some extra entries. Although now probably you'll enter and my chances will go down. Kellie is giving away this gorgeous quilt. I can't believe it! I love her applique and patterns, but it's not really my quilting forte, so winning would be heaven.

Bombs away

2009-08-23T12:12:00.006-05:00

Galt Airport flour drop target. It looks easy to hit from the ground, but it's not!

Saturday was the 2nd Annual Galt Airport Flour Drop, and this year we actually hit the target! At one point we were in a six-way tie for third place with our 10-point hit (the ring outside the bullseye), but were quickly knocked out by better bombadiers.

Some of the competition in the flour drop.

View from the air. Not all that smoke is flying flour. Some of the planes purposely created smoke to heighten the drama of the day. Like someone afraid of heights needs any more excitement than hanging flour bombs out the window of a small plane.

We went up in "Chubby," a fabric and plywood contraption with "Experimental" emblazoned on the side. I don't mind small planes at all, which is a good thing when you are married to a pilot who insists that every vacation involves getting there via our little Mooney. (We regularly take separate vacations!)

The pilot.

But, I don't like heights. At all. My able pilot had the plane sideways. I had one hand extended out the window, clutching a 1-pound bag of flour, and the other one clutching the camera. My eyes were tightly closed (from both the wind and the frightening view of the ground), so Larry had to yell "Now!" so I'd know when to let go of the flour sack.

The bombardier.

It was great fun. Especially when we were back on the ground!

St. Ignace, MI.

Earlier in the week we flew to St. Ignace, Mackinaw Island and Traverse City, Michigan, for vacation. We both enjoyed being away for a few days, and then coming home for a few days around the house before going back to work.

St. Ignace was pretty and quiet. We stayed at the Tradewinds, which was clean and comfortable, although not fancy, and within walking distance of the downtown area.

Ojibwe Museum, St. Ignace, MI.

The area is home to the Ojibwe, and the museum in town is small, but good. The gift shop is nice because it features crafts from Native Americans and not a bunch of things made in China. There was a display of Ojibwe crafts, including stitchery with porcupine quills. I didn't get any pictures of the museum pieces nor could I afford to buy any of the ones on sale, but this site has pictures of some birch bark boxes decorated with quill stitchery. Beautiful.

Unpacking the plane at Mackinaw Island, MI.

Flew to Mackinac Island for the day. Our folding bicycles came in handy, but after a full day of biking -- Larry estimated we did 15 miles -- I wasn't sure I would be able to sit down again. Ouch. All that padding didn't seem to help.

He didn't really bike up that hill. If he had, he probably wouldn't be smiling.

No cars are allowed on Mackinac Island. It's walk, bike or ride a horse-drawn carriage. All those horses in August meant a rather smelly bike ride through the high-traffic areas of the island. Phew! Worth it for the beautiful landscape.

View of Mackinac Island from the air.

Sue Ross BOM

2009-08-20T19:36:00.004-05:00

When I saw the Sue Ross BOM on Material Obsession's blog, I signed up right away. I know, I know. I can't keep up with my blog, how am I going to keep up with a block of the month. One block a month. One. Not 15 a month like that flag exchange. One.

When the email arrived saying it was coming I would have started right then, but no templates and no fabrics. And the instructions said hand piecing. Seriously? I've never done that in my life. Should I make a practice block or just go for it? One block a month. Remember? A practice block might be all I got done. Plus I had to cut out and draw seam allowances on 61 pieces per block. One block. Easy decision. Do it by machine or take a stab at hand piecing? What's life without learning? Besides how hard could it be? (Don't know yet as I haven't finished it, but it still looks like it could fit together.)

And, then I asked to join the Sue Ross BOM blog. Two blogs? That second blog will push me to blog AND finish the block each month. Playing psychological tricks on myself seems to be working. I've already posted twice today! And that other post has links to some great hand piecing tutorials I found online.